REPORTER: Ginny Stein
Today, the first refugees from the 'Tampa' are coming home. They were detained by Australia on the Pacific island of Nauru for more than a year. Five men who have given up their hopes for asylum - they're returning with mixed feelings.
REPORTER: What's it feel like to be home.
MOHAMMED HUSSAIN AHMADI, RETURNEE (Translation): I'm disappointed to be back home. But I'm happy.
They are coming home to a very uncertain future, as Afghanistan struggles to cope with the flood of returning refugees. But, for these men, it's their treatment by Australia that rankles the most. Mohammed Hussain Ahmadi reluctantly agreed to speak to Dateline, but only for the briefest exchange.
MOHAMMED HUSSAIN AHMADI (Translation): I believe I was treated completely unjustly in Australia. That's your two questions. Now I have to go.
Afghanistan's Foreign Minister backs up the men's rebuke to Australia.
DR ABDULLAH ABDULLAH, FOREIGN MINISTER: While we are grateful for the hospitality shown in other cases, in these specific cases, I think there is room for improvement. There is a need for focus. And certainly and obviously those people which have returned recently, they are very angry about it. I think this is a humanitarian issue, which has to be looked at on humanitarian, on the basis of humanitarian issues and international standards and beyond domestic politics.
But it's from border camps with neighbours Pakistan and Iran that the vast majority of returning Afghans are coming home. Most have not set foot in their homeland since the day they fled, as the Taliban advanced five years ago.
NASRUDDIN, RETURNEE (Translation): Now, our country is free and at peace, we return to rebuild our homes and our lives. I pray that peace returns to our homeland.
Over 5 million Afghans have been displaced over the past five years. But that human tide has now turned around and almost 2 million will have returned by the end of the year.
ABDULLAH HAMEED, UNHCR: So, a huge number of people came yesterday, but some of the families even we couldn't register them - just more than 200, more than 200 families.
The logistical difficulties of coping with the influx are made much worse by the unexpected speed of the return. The UN and Afghan authorities predicted 600,000 people would make the journey home this year. They now admit they got it wrong, very wrong.
DR ABDULLAH ABDULLAH: Yes. The number which we were expecting was 600,000 for this year, but it is almost 2 million. It will be 2 million for this year.
FILIPPO GRANDI, UNHCR MISSION CHIEF: In November 2001, when the massive bombing campaign in Afghanistan ended, there were about 5 million Afghans who lived outside their homes, either abroad or displaced within the country. So the massive displacement of Afghans which was probably at that time the biggest single displacement phenomenon in the world, has turned into a massive return, probably the biggest, the biggest return of people to their homes in many, many years, in the world.
And that's left Afghanistan's interim government with a huge and potentially destabilising dilemma.
DR ABDULLAH ABDULLAH: From one side, it is the sign of a stability and it's a good news that people have the confidence over the situation, over the circumstances, as well as the government. But, from the other side, we have to facilitate their stay here. There, I think we are far from being able to deal with this. But I hope that this will not turn into a crisis.
Like more than a million others, Nasruddin, his wife Bibe and their three children have spent years eking out a miserable existence inside refugee camps in neighbouring Pakistan. Their 5-year-old son Fridoon was born there.
BIBE, RETURNEE (Translation): We are very happy. Pakistan was very hot. We're happy to return to our homeland.
What little they have matches their expectations of what they
will find on their return home.
NASRUDDIN (Translation): You saw how we spent last night. If we go back to our village, we'd have to build temporary shelter.
At the main processing centre for returnees on the outskirts of the capital, Nasruddin lines up for cash assistance. Each person returning receives US$20 in emergency aid. But aid supplies are running low. Food assistance has been halved. Winter is approaching and there's no longer money for tents or warm clothing.
ABDULLAH HAMEED, UNHCR: The three packages changed to two packages. Today, also changed, decreased, the food, non-food item decreased, but the cash is still the same.
Nasruddin and his family are returning to a land destroyed. The cost of more than 23 years of war - a nation reduced today to little more than rubble. After three days on the road, Nasruddin and his family are almost home. But, after
what he's already seen, he knows what to expect.
NASRUDDIN (Translation): Look there. That was our house, destroyed by the Taliban. That garden was also ours. All these houses were burnt down. May God bring peace to our land. Tell him to stop there.
Over the past few months, the population of Qarabagh Karez, north of the capital, Kabul, has doubled. Nasruddin finds what's left of his family home has been taken over in his absence. Homeless squatters have moved in.
NASRUDDIN (Translation): I'm happy people were living here, looking after my house. If any timber had been left, it would have been taken. Since I have returned, they will go back to their home. If God wills, I'll start rebuilding. I'll be employing a labourer. I'm just waiting for this family to leave.
The Shomali Valley was once considered the garden of Afghanistan. It had been international reputation for the fine sultana grapes it produced and exported. But, as the Taliban attempted to extend its influence, the village of Qarabagh Karez was fiercely fought over and much of it destroyed.
PAHLAWAN MOHAMMAD ZAHER, SHOMALI VILLAGE CHIEF (Translation): Well, this place was very nice. We had 10 or 15 varieties of grapes. Ten types of grapes. Each fruit tree had several varieties. We had varieties of mulberries, five or six types. And, in every garden, you'd see many flowers.
But that time of splendour now seems consigned to a very different period in history. For so many Afghans, life here now revolves around meeting the most basic of human needs - of water, food and shelter.
PAHLAWAN MOHAMMAD ZAHER (Translatin): This well had lots of water, enough for our people. When the Taliban came, we were facing drought. They destroyed the wells and now we don't get half the water.
At the start of this year, international donors met in Tokyo and pledged almost $10 billion to Afghanistan to be doled out over five years. But the stark reality is that very little of that money has so far made it here. And that has the potential to spark a new crisis.
REPORTER: The reality is that this could all go horribly wrong, couldn't it?
FILIPPO GRANDI, UNHCR MISSION CHIEF: It certainly could if development resources continue to trickle in as slowly as they have in the past few months, in spite of the pledges made at the Tokyo Conference seven, eight months ago.
For a nation that has, for decades, been ruled at the end of a gun, waiting too long for international assistance could threaten the stability of the new government.
AQUIL SHAH, INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP: I think the humanitarian crisis does pose a serious danger to Afghanistan's ability to recoup from the 24 years of conflict that has devastated the country.
REPORTER: So, when people sit back and say, you know, "We're not going to put in until we know that Afghanistan is stable," is there a real danger that waiting for stability is just going to lead to instability?
AQUIL SHAH: Oh, absolutely. I think the semblance of stability that we see - it seems from the outside that it's the calm before the storm, because Kabul is this haven of, you know, stability that it seems but, if you step just outside Kabul, things seem to be falling apart.
But even in Kabul, the people have long known when it is time to flee. For most of this city's residents have packed up and fled time and time again, as battlelines have waxed and waned. 35-year-old Mahjan has spent most of her adult life on the run and, for most of the past five years, in a succession of refugee camps across the border in Pakistan. Over the years, each homecoming to her city of birth has been a result of death.
MAHJAN, AFGHAN SQUATTER (Translation): One of my brothers was killed and then another brother was killed and I came for his funeral and then my husband was killed in Shamali and I came for his funeral. I suffered a lot, then went back. We couldn't stand it.
Now, she's returned, with all that remains of her family - her three daughters and her father-in-law. This time, she hopes it will be for good, but she sums up her future with this popular Afghan saying.
MAHJAN (Translation): "If a person doesn't suffer, they won't be comfortable." We'd rather be in this situation than in Pakistan or another country.
When Mahjan arrived home three months ago she had nowhere to go.
MAHJAN (Translation): When we came here, we couldn't find anywhere to live. Someone gave us this address, and we came here. This belonged to Afghanistan's electricity company. It's completely destroyed. We came here with other refugees. We've been in these ruins for the last three months.
More than 20 families have since taken up residence in this bombed-out building. These homeless people know they can expect little help to survive their first winter, because aid agencies are giving first priority to property-owners to allow them to rebuild quickly. But Mahjan's 10-year-old daughter, Khuboh, has more immediate concerns - of getting to school on time.
KHUBOH, DAUGHTER (Translation): Mother! We'll be going at eight and coming back at nine or ten.
Khuboh knows what she wants.
KHUBOH (Translation): I'm happy to be back here so I can continue my education.
She has a dream.
KHUBOH (Translation): In the future, I'd like to be a doctor or a teacher and teach the children, and do other things.
Amidst the rubble, children are being given a chance to learn. Once denied an education, as many girls as boys have enrolled in this school. But school here is likely to end almost as soon as it has begun. Holding classes in these conditions once the freezing depth of winter sets in has been ruled out. The UN admits it's fighting what appears to be a losing battle on many fronts.
FILIPPO GRANDI: Well, like anybody else, an Afghan returning home will require two things. One is to have access to the basic services - education, health, potable water, food, housing and so forth. And second - have access to jobs to survive. And what we are really worried about is that, unless massive - and I repeat massive developmental and reconstruction programmes begin in this country, this huge return, which is a very positive development, may turn into a problematic situation.
This is the Afghanistan that the first returnees from Nauru are about to discover. Two days after he came home to his village from Nauru, 28-year-old Ghulam Hazrat Mohammadi agreed to speak with Dateline. Hazrat, as he prefers to be known, admitted the group's initial reluctance to talk was in reaction to how they had been treated by the Australian Government.
GHULAM HAZRAT MOHAMMADI, RETURNEE (Translation): The Australian Government treated us unjustly and cruelly. I'm sure the Australian people are very nice. But John Howard sacrificed us for his own political purposes. He imprisoned us for one year in Nauru, which was very difficult for our people to tolerate. I couldn't stand it any more. I do regret I went to Australia. Australia claims to defend human rights but the Australian Government is violating them.
Hazrat says he decided to return home for one reason - he felt it was the only way to escape his prison island.
GHULAM HAZRAT MOHAMMADI (Translation): Nothing could be done except to go back home.
The United Nations is concerned that Australian authorities may not have passed on true and accurate information about the situation in Afghanistan.
FILIPPO GRANDI: People who are hosted in any country in difficult conditions - there will be an added incentive to return but, nevertheless, I think we should provide this information, irrespective of the motivation of their decision to return. I think it is our duty and I think it is something that is feasible, so we would like to do that.
REPORTER: Did this happen in the case of the first people who've come back from Nauru?
FILIPPO GRANDI: Evidently, it was not sufficiently done
because, when they arrived here and they went back to their areas - not all of them, but some of them - complained that they did not know about how bad the conditions were in those areas. Therefore, I think this information was not adequate.
Kabul has swelled from the shell of a city it once was. Traffic jams are now as common as the daily search for water. The water shortage, caused by years of drought, has city authorities worried. In a nation where stability has been the exception rather than the rule, water, or the lack of it, is considered a potential cracking point.
MAJOR STEVEN ODELL, ISAF: It's very good to see them return. It's good to see a population increase in a city like this but, obviously, it does have a breaking point. We're keeping a very close eye to make sure that all the standard services - the water, sanitation, roads and education and so on - is sort of up to what we expect.
The UN is now so concerned about the pace of return, the approaching winter and its lack of funds, that it's considering making a monumental decision of cutting assistance to refugees in an attempt to persuade them not to return until after winter.
FILIPPO GRANDI: So we are debating a lot whether we should, at some stage, stop assisting these returns, stop giving them transport assistance and other forms of support, because we cannot guarantee that they will have sufficient time, for example, to rebuild their homes, before winter sets in and makes it impossible.
REPORTER: The UN, UNHCR is saying that it's actually thinking at the moment of saying to returnees, "Stop. Don't come back." Is that fair? Should they be doing that?
AQUIL SHAH: It is important to send out these signals, both to the international community, and to the people who are returning, that things are not as rosy as they look from outside and, once winter comes in and the massive problems of accessibility for these aid agencies to even make it to the people who need assistance and help, so I think it's probably a desperate but fair call in that sense.
American-led forces have, at least for now, ended decades of civil war and finally given Afghanistan the chance to become a peaceful country. But whether that happens still hangs in the balance. Unless the international community commits enough resources to settle the returnees quickly and rebuild this nation's shattered infrastructure, Afghanistan's tenuous grip on peace and stability may not survive the coming winter.
Today, the first refugees from the 'Tampa' are coming home. They were detained by Australia on the Pacific island of Nauru for more than a year. Five men who have given up their hopes for asylum - they're returning with mixed feelings.
REPORTER: What's it feel like to be home.
MOHAMMED HUSSAIN AHMADI, RETURNEE (Translation): I'm disappointed to be back home. But I'm happy.
They are coming home to a very uncertain future, as Afghanistan struggles to cope with the flood of returning refugees. But, for these men, it's their treatment by Australia that rankles the most. Mohammed Hussain Ahmadi reluctantly agreed to speak to Dateline, but only for the briefest exchange.
MOHAMMED HUSSAIN AHMADI (Translation): I believe I was treated completely unjustly in Australia. That's your two questions. Now I have to go.
Afghanistan's Foreign Minister backs up the men's rebuke to Australia.
DR ABDULLAH ABDULLAH, FOREIGN MINISTER: While we are grateful for the hospitality shown in other cases, in these specific cases, I think there is room for improvement. There is a need for focus. And certainly and obviously those people which have returned recently, they are very angry about it. I think this is a humanitarian issue, which has to be looked at on humanitarian, on the basis of humanitarian issues and international standards and beyond domestic politics.
But it's from border camps with neighbours Pakistan and Iran that the vast majority of returning Afghans are coming home. Most have not set foot in their homeland since the day they fled, as the Taliban advanced five years ago.
NASRUDDIN, RETURNEE (Translation): Now, our country is free and at peace, we return to rebuild our homes and our lives. I pray that peace returns to our homeland.
Over 5 million Afghans have been displaced over the past five years. But that human tide has now turned around and almost 2 million will have returned by the end of the year.
ABDULLAH HAMEED, UNHCR: So, a huge number of people came yesterday, but some of the families even we couldn't register them - just more than 200, more than 200 families.
The logistical difficulties of coping with the influx are made much worse by the unexpected speed of the return. The UN and Afghan authorities predicted 600,000 people would make the journey home this year. They now admit they got it wrong, very wrong.
DR ABDULLAH ABDULLAH: Yes. The number which we were expecting was 600,000 for this year, but it is almost 2 million. It will be 2 million for this year.
FILIPPO GRANDI, UNHCR MISSION CHIEF: In November 2001, when the massive bombing campaign in Afghanistan ended, there were about 5 million Afghans who lived outside their homes, either abroad or displaced within the country. So the massive displacement of Afghans which was probably at that time the biggest single displacement phenomenon in the world, has turned into a massive return, probably the biggest, the biggest return of people to their homes in many, many years, in the world.
And that's left Afghanistan's interim government with a huge and potentially destabilising dilemma.
DR ABDULLAH ABDULLAH: From one side, it is the sign of a stability and it's a good news that people have the confidence over the situation, over the circumstances, as well as the government. But, from the other side, we have to facilitate their stay here. There, I think we are far from being able to deal with this. But I hope that this will not turn into a crisis.
Like more than a million others, Nasruddin, his wife Bibe and their three children have spent years eking out a miserable existence inside refugee camps in neighbouring Pakistan. Their 5-year-old son Fridoon was born there.
BIBE, RETURNEE (Translation): We are very happy. Pakistan was very hot. We're happy to return to our homeland.
What little they have matches their expectations of what they
will find on their return home.
NASRUDDIN (Translation): You saw how we spent last night. If we go back to our village, we'd have to build temporary shelter.
At the main processing centre for returnees on the outskirts of the capital, Nasruddin lines up for cash assistance. Each person returning receives US$20 in emergency aid. But aid supplies are running low. Food assistance has been halved. Winter is approaching and there's no longer money for tents or warm clothing.
ABDULLAH HAMEED, UNHCR: The three packages changed to two packages. Today, also changed, decreased, the food, non-food item decreased, but the cash is still the same.
Nasruddin and his family are returning to a land destroyed. The cost of more than 23 years of war - a nation reduced today to little more than rubble. After three days on the road, Nasruddin and his family are almost home. But, after
what he's already seen, he knows what to expect.
NASRUDDIN (Translation): Look there. That was our house, destroyed by the Taliban. That garden was also ours. All these houses were burnt down. May God bring peace to our land. Tell him to stop there.
Over the past few months, the population of Qarabagh Karez, north of the capital, Kabul, has doubled. Nasruddin finds what's left of his family home has been taken over in his absence. Homeless squatters have moved in.
NASRUDDIN (Translation): I'm happy people were living here, looking after my house. If any timber had been left, it would have been taken. Since I have returned, they will go back to their home. If God wills, I'll start rebuilding. I'll be employing a labourer. I'm just waiting for this family to leave.
The Shomali Valley was once considered the garden of Afghanistan. It had been international reputation for the fine sultana grapes it produced and exported. But, as the Taliban attempted to extend its influence, the village of Qarabagh Karez was fiercely fought over and much of it destroyed.
PAHLAWAN MOHAMMAD ZAHER, SHOMALI VILLAGE CHIEF (Translation): Well, this place was very nice. We had 10 or 15 varieties of grapes. Ten types of grapes. Each fruit tree had several varieties. We had varieties of mulberries, five or six types. And, in every garden, you'd see many flowers.
But that time of splendour now seems consigned to a very different period in history. For so many Afghans, life here now revolves around meeting the most basic of human needs - of water, food and shelter.
PAHLAWAN MOHAMMAD ZAHER (Translatin): This well had lots of water, enough for our people. When the Taliban came, we were facing drought. They destroyed the wells and now we don't get half the water.
At the start of this year, international donors met in Tokyo and pledged almost $10 billion to Afghanistan to be doled out over five years. But the stark reality is that very little of that money has so far made it here. And that has the potential to spark a new crisis.
REPORTER: The reality is that this could all go horribly wrong, couldn't it?
FILIPPO GRANDI, UNHCR MISSION CHIEF: It certainly could if development resources continue to trickle in as slowly as they have in the past few months, in spite of the pledges made at the Tokyo Conference seven, eight months ago.
For a nation that has, for decades, been ruled at the end of a gun, waiting too long for international assistance could threaten the stability of the new government.
AQUIL SHAH, INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP: I think the humanitarian crisis does pose a serious danger to Afghanistan's ability to recoup from the 24 years of conflict that has devastated the country.
REPORTER: So, when people sit back and say, you know, "We're not going to put in until we know that Afghanistan is stable," is there a real danger that waiting for stability is just going to lead to instability?
AQUIL SHAH: Oh, absolutely. I think the semblance of stability that we see - it seems from the outside that it's the calm before the storm, because Kabul is this haven of, you know, stability that it seems but, if you step just outside Kabul, things seem to be falling apart.
But even in Kabul, the people have long known when it is time to flee. For most of this city's residents have packed up and fled time and time again, as battlelines have waxed and waned. 35-year-old Mahjan has spent most of her adult life on the run and, for most of the past five years, in a succession of refugee camps across the border in Pakistan. Over the years, each homecoming to her city of birth has been a result of death.
MAHJAN, AFGHAN SQUATTER (Translation): One of my brothers was killed and then another brother was killed and I came for his funeral and then my husband was killed in Shamali and I came for his funeral. I suffered a lot, then went back. We couldn't stand it.
Now, she's returned, with all that remains of her family - her three daughters and her father-in-law. This time, she hopes it will be for good, but she sums up her future with this popular Afghan saying.
MAHJAN (Translation): "If a person doesn't suffer, they won't be comfortable." We'd rather be in this situation than in Pakistan or another country.
When Mahjan arrived home three months ago she had nowhere to go.
MAHJAN (Translation): When we came here, we couldn't find anywhere to live. Someone gave us this address, and we came here. This belonged to Afghanistan's electricity company. It's completely destroyed. We came here with other refugees. We've been in these ruins for the last three months.
More than 20 families have since taken up residence in this bombed-out building. These homeless people know they can expect little help to survive their first winter, because aid agencies are giving first priority to property-owners to allow them to rebuild quickly. But Mahjan's 10-year-old daughter, Khuboh, has more immediate concerns - of getting to school on time.
KHUBOH, DAUGHTER (Translation): Mother! We'll be going at eight and coming back at nine or ten.
Khuboh knows what she wants.
KHUBOH (Translation): I'm happy to be back here so I can continue my education.
She has a dream.
KHUBOH (Translation): In the future, I'd like to be a doctor or a teacher and teach the children, and do other things.
Amidst the rubble, children are being given a chance to learn. Once denied an education, as many girls as boys have enrolled in this school. But school here is likely to end almost as soon as it has begun. Holding classes in these conditions once the freezing depth of winter sets in has been ruled out. The UN admits it's fighting what appears to be a losing battle on many fronts.
FILIPPO GRANDI: Well, like anybody else, an Afghan returning home will require two things. One is to have access to the basic services - education, health, potable water, food, housing and so forth. And second - have access to jobs to survive. And what we are really worried about is that, unless massive - and I repeat massive developmental and reconstruction programmes begin in this country, this huge return, which is a very positive development, may turn into a problematic situation.
This is the Afghanistan that the first returnees from Nauru are about to discover. Two days after he came home to his village from Nauru, 28-year-old Ghulam Hazrat Mohammadi agreed to speak with Dateline. Hazrat, as he prefers to be known, admitted the group's initial reluctance to talk was in reaction to how they had been treated by the Australian Government.
GHULAM HAZRAT MOHAMMADI, RETURNEE (Translation): The Australian Government treated us unjustly and cruelly. I'm sure the Australian people are very nice. But John Howard sacrificed us for his own political purposes. He imprisoned us for one year in Nauru, which was very difficult for our people to tolerate. I couldn't stand it any more. I do regret I went to Australia. Australia claims to defend human rights but the Australian Government is violating them.
Hazrat says he decided to return home for one reason - he felt it was the only way to escape his prison island.
GHULAM HAZRAT MOHAMMADI (Translation): Nothing could be done except to go back home.
The United Nations is concerned that Australian authorities may not have passed on true and accurate information about the situation in Afghanistan.
FILIPPO GRANDI: People who are hosted in any country in difficult conditions - there will be an added incentive to return but, nevertheless, I think we should provide this information, irrespective of the motivation of their decision to return. I think it is our duty and I think it is something that is feasible, so we would like to do that.
REPORTER: Did this happen in the case of the first people who've come back from Nauru?
FILIPPO GRANDI: Evidently, it was not sufficiently done
because, when they arrived here and they went back to their areas - not all of them, but some of them - complained that they did not know about how bad the conditions were in those areas. Therefore, I think this information was not adequate.
Kabul has swelled from the shell of a city it once was. Traffic jams are now as common as the daily search for water. The water shortage, caused by years of drought, has city authorities worried. In a nation where stability has been the exception rather than the rule, water, or the lack of it, is considered a potential cracking point.
MAJOR STEVEN ODELL, ISAF: It's very good to see them return. It's good to see a population increase in a city like this but, obviously, it does have a breaking point. We're keeping a very close eye to make sure that all the standard services - the water, sanitation, roads and education and so on - is sort of up to what we expect.
The UN is now so concerned about the pace of return, the approaching winter and its lack of funds, that it's considering making a monumental decision of cutting assistance to refugees in an attempt to persuade them not to return until after winter.
FILIPPO GRANDI: So we are debating a lot whether we should, at some stage, stop assisting these returns, stop giving them transport assistance and other forms of support, because we cannot guarantee that they will have sufficient time, for example, to rebuild their homes, before winter sets in and makes it impossible.
REPORTER: The UN, UNHCR is saying that it's actually thinking at the moment of saying to returnees, "Stop. Don't come back." Is that fair? Should they be doing that?
AQUIL SHAH: It is important to send out these signals, both to the international community, and to the people who are returning, that things are not as rosy as they look from outside and, once winter comes in and the massive problems of accessibility for these aid agencies to even make it to the people who need assistance and help, so I think it's probably a desperate but fair call in that sense.
American-led forces have, at least for now, ended decades of civil war and finally given Afghanistan the chance to become a peaceful country. But whether that happens still hangs in the balance. Unless the international community commits enough resources to settle the returnees quickly and rebuild this nation's shattered infrastructure, Afghanistan's tenuous grip on peace and stability may not survive the coming winter.