Afghanistan: Over 100,000 displaced so far this year

Over 100,000 people have been forced out of their homes by clashes in different parts of Afghanistan over the past 12 months but by no means all of them have received aid, according to aid agencies and affected people. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says civilians are trapped in a difficult environment: "One armed group may demand food and shelter in the evening and an opposing side demand justification for harboring an enemy in the morning," ICRC spokesman Bijan Frederic Farnoudi told IRIN. "Many families see fleeing as their only solution," he said, adding that internally displaced persons (IDPs) were "living a life of misery and poverty". The ICRC, which works in collaboration with the Afghan Red Crescent Society and has better access to conflict-affected areas than UN agencies, said it had assisted about 20,000 of the over 100,000 civilians displaced by fighting since last year. Armed violence has reached unprecedented levels since the Taliban ouster in 2001, and civilians have increasingly borne the brunt of the violence, aid agencies say. The number of IDPs in Afghanistan is estimated at about 300,000 by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and over 450,000 by the Ministry of Refugees and Returnees (MoRR). Most are residuals from the over one million displaced before 2001 due to conflict, poverty and natural disasters.