Pakistani refugees, election dispute threaten to cause humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan

Afghanistan is struggling to cope with about 65,000 Pakistanis who streamed across the border to flee fighting between the military and Taliban fighters that has displaced almost half a million people.

About 11,000 families have arrived in the eastern provin-ces of Khost and Paktika this month as Pakistan's military fights militants in North Waziristan province. Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif flew to a city in the tribal area on Friday to visit some of the 450,000 Pakistanis displaced in the country.

“This kind of migration had never happened previously,” Mohammad Nader Farhad, a spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said by phone from Kabul. “It could be the biggest migration of Pakistani refugees in Afghan history.”

The flow of people into Afghanistan threatens to cause a humanitarian crisis as Asia's poorest country fights Taliban militants in the south. A disputed presidential election risks leading to further violence and delays in signing a security pact that would keep U.S. troops in Afghanistan beyond 2014 and secure billions of dollars in aid money.

“Afghanistan is itself facing humanitarian crisis, and it's a big challenge for us to provide shelter and food for about 11,000 families,” Islamuddin Jurat, a spokesman for Afghanistan's ministry of refugees and repatriation, said by phone. “It's a huge number and a worst-case scenario.”

Meanwhile, thousands of supporters of an Afghan presidential candidate who has alleged fraud marched on Friday in the capital, the Associated Press reported.

Abdullah Abdullah, who has suspended ties with the main election commission over the allegations, joined thousands of protesters gathered in front of the presidential palace. The protesters shouted that they would not accept fraud and that Abdullah will be the next president.

The former foreign minister was a runner-up in the disputed 2009 vote that led to President Hamid Karzai's re-election, which was marred by widespread fraud allegations.

Protesters on Friday pointed a finger at Karzai, who was constitutionally barred from seeking a third term, in this year's election as well.

“Death to Karzai,” the crowds chanted, waving Afghan flags. “Karzai we know you are behind the fraud.”

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