Half `Eid for Afghan Refugees

By Aamir Latif, IOL Correspondent
PESHAWAR — Before `Eid Al-Fitr, Gul Zameen Khan, an elderly Afghan refugee in Pakistan, used to get gifts and a small cash from donors and local authorities, drawing a smile on the faces of his young children.

But this year, the dearth of aid has cast a pall over the joy of the Muslim feast, which marks the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, among Afghan refugees in the southeast Asian Muslim country.

"`Eid Al-Fitr and `Eid Al-Adha are the two occasions when we used to get good and ample food, some amount of money and clothes for ourselves and our children,” Khan told IslamOnline.net.

"But the quantity of food and the other items have been reduced during the last few years as most of the NGOs and governments have halted their operations here.”

Pakistan has been hosting over two million refugees who trickled into the country after the Soviet and US invasions of their country.

Every year, chartered planes loaded with food, clothes and gifts used to land in Pakistan two weeks before `Eid, drawing a smile on the face of Afghan refugees in shelter camps.

"We have not been receiving sufficient `Eid grants for the last two years following closure of various refugee camps in different parts of northwestern frontier province,” said Khan.

`Eid Al-Fitr, of the two main Islamic religious festivals together with `Eid Al-Adha, started in Pakistan on Monday, September 21.

During `Eid, families and friends exchange visits to express well wishes and children, wearing new clothes bought especially for `Eid, enjoy going out in parks and open fields.

Half Eid


Some of the refugees still maintain a glimmer of hope, thanks to efforts of Islamic and foreign NGOs operating in the country.


"I have got clothes for two out of my four children,” Ghous Khan, an Afghan settled in the Azakhela refugee camp on the outskirts of Peshawar, told IOL.

Many NGOs, including the UK Islamic Mission, Helping Hands, Islamic Relief, the US-based Islamic Circle of North America and some Turkish NGOs, have provided clothes and `Eid gifts for some refugees.

They also hosted `Eid festivals at refugee camps, featuring swings for children, football and cricket tournaments, and other traditional Afghan sports.

Ghous said the NGOs had allocated a quota for each family because of the limited resources available.

"This year, half of the total number of children and female members of a family got new clothes, while the quantity of the gifts have also reduced,” he asserted.

"But there is no Eidi (small `Eid money) and clothes for males this year.”