TORONTO, November 9, 2001 -- The Pakistani Students Association and the Centre for Refugee Studies (CRS) at York University will host a lecture and photo exhibition on the Afghan refugee crisis, with presentations from Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders, the CRS, and the only non-governmental organization operating inside Afghanistan with the permission of the Taliban regime, the Canadian Relief Foundation (CRF).
CRF medical relief coordinator Dr. Raza Khan will report on the crisis on Tuesday, November 13 at 6 p.m. in the Brian Cragg Cinema, Room 211, Founders College. Khan, a family physician from Brantford, Ontario, was in Afghanistan one year ago on a personal fact-finding mission. He is now an active fund-raiser for the Toronto-based organization, which he says is working closely with the United Nations World Food Program and the Taliban authorities to deliver food and medicine to the local population.
"The snow will make it very difficult to get food in, and we are fearful that if there is no pause in the bombing we will be finding the bodies of women and children under melting snow in the spring," says Khan. He says 4 to 6 million Afghanis are now facing starvation and are eating leaves and animal fodder.
The CRF was established in December 1999 to assist children and widows affected by UN sanctions in Iraq and Afghanistan. It operates two orphanages in and around Kabul, housing 850 children, 120 of them girls. Khan says the CRF has been successful in arranging schooling for the girls, where the UN has failed. He says the CRF program director in Kabul, Fadil Dilmann, a Canadian of Kurd heritage, has a good, working understanding of the Taliban government. Khan says Dilmann recently shepherded a 500-ton shipment of wheat to Kabul by truck convoy through a safety route brokered by the UN, and has been filing regular reports to Al-Jazeera TV with a satellite phone that the Taliban authorities allow him to possess.
The photo exhibit, A Portrait of Afghanistan’s Refugees, by Naureen Shah, will open today until Nov.16 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Arthur Haberman Art Gallery, 2nd floor in Founders College. Shah recently returned from the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area, where she captured on film the plight of Afghanis caught in the vortex of politics and poverty.
Prof. Peter Penz, director of the York Centre for Refugee Studies will speak on Tuesday on the general situation of refugees around the world. Donations for the lecture and the photo exhibition will be distributed to agencies assisting Afghan refugees. Both events are at the Keele campus of York University, 4700 Keele St.
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For further information, please contact:
| Atif Durrani, Vice-President | Susan Bigelow |
| Pakistani Students Assn. | Media Relations |
| York University | York University |
| 416-595-7040 | 416-736-2100, ext. 22091 |
| atif.durrani@ene.gov.on.ca | sbigelow@yorku.ca |
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