Friday, May 6, 2011
کوئٹہ: پارک میں حملہ، چھ ہلاک
پولیس نے اس واقعہ کو فرقہ وارانہ دھشت گردی قرار دیا ہے
بلوچستان کے دارالحکومت کوئٹہ میں نامعلوم افراد کی جانب سے فائرنگ اور راکٹوں کے ایک حملے میں چھ افراد ہلاک اور دس زخمی ہوگئے ہیں۔
زخمیوں میں سے بعض کی حالت تشویشناک ہے۔
کوئٹہ سے بی بی سی کے نامہ نگار ایوب ترین کے مطابق جمعہ کی صبح تقریباً ساڑے چھ بجے کوئٹہ کےمغربی بائی پاس کے قریب ہزارہ ٹاؤن میں واقع ایک گراؤنڈ پر اس وقت نامعلوم افراد نے راکٹ اور کلاشنکوف سے فائرنگ کی جب وہاں لوگوں کی ایک بڑی تعداد صبح کی سیر کرنے کے علاوہ فٹ بال اور کرکٹ کے کھیل میں مصروف تھی۔
اس فائرنگ سے چھ افراد ہلاک اور دس زخمی ہوگئے جنہیں فوری طور پر بولان میڈیکل کمپلیکس اور سی ایم ایچ منتقل کیا گیا جہاں ڈاکٹروں نے بعض زخمیوں کی حالت تشویشناک بتائی ہے۔
بولان میڈیکل کمپلیکس میں ہلاک اور زخمی ہونے والوں کے رشتہ داروں نے ڈاکٹروں کی غیر موجودگی پر بھی احتجاج کیا ہے۔
عینی شاہدین کے مطابق تین گاڑیوں میں سوار مسلح افراد نے وہاں آ کر گراؤنڈ میں موجود افراد پر پہلے تین راکٹ فائرکیے بعد میں کلاشنکوفوں سے اندھادند فائرنگ کی جس کے باعث جانی نقصان زیادہ ہوا ہے۔
پولیس کے مطابق واقعہ میں ہلاک ہونے والوں میں سے زیادہ تر کا تعلق شیعہ مسلک سے ہے جبکہ کالعدم تنظیم لشکرِ جھنگوی نے اس حملے کی ذمہ داری قبول کر لی ہے۔
پولیس نے اس واقعہ کو فرقہ وارانہ دہشتگردی قرار دے کر نامعلوم افراد کے خلاف مقدمہ درج کر کے ان کی کی تلاش شروع کر دی ہے۔
واقعہ کے خلاف مشتعل مظاہرین نے کوئٹہ کے مغربی بائی پاس روڈ احتجاجاً بند کر کے مطالبہ کیا ہے کہ واقعہ میں ملوث افراد کو فوری طور پرگرفتار کیا جائے، تاہم بعد میں پولیس اور سیکورٹی فورسز کی بھاری نفری نے موقع پر پہنچ کر مظاہرین سے مذاکرات کیے اور راستہ بحال کروایا۔
Source,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/pakistan/2011/05/110505_quetta_killing_a.shtml
بلوچستان کے دارالحکومت کوئٹہ میں نامعلوم افراد کی جانب سے فائرنگ اور راکٹوں کے ایک حملے میں چھ افراد ہلاک اور دس زخمی ہوگئے ہیں۔
زخمیوں میں سے بعض کی حالت تشویشناک ہے۔
کوئٹہ سے بی بی سی کے نامہ نگار ایوب ترین کے مطابق جمعہ کی صبح تقریباً ساڑے چھ بجے کوئٹہ کےمغربی بائی پاس کے قریب ہزارہ ٹاؤن میں واقع ایک گراؤنڈ پر اس وقت نامعلوم افراد نے راکٹ اور کلاشنکوف سے فائرنگ کی جب وہاں لوگوں کی ایک بڑی تعداد صبح کی سیر کرنے کے علاوہ فٹ بال اور کرکٹ کے کھیل میں مصروف تھی۔
اس فائرنگ سے چھ افراد ہلاک اور دس زخمی ہوگئے جنہیں فوری طور پر بولان میڈیکل کمپلیکس اور سی ایم ایچ منتقل کیا گیا جہاں ڈاکٹروں نے بعض زخمیوں کی حالت تشویشناک بتائی ہے۔
بولان میڈیکل کمپلیکس میں ہلاک اور زخمی ہونے والوں کے رشتہ داروں نے ڈاکٹروں کی غیر موجودگی پر بھی احتجاج کیا ہے۔
عینی شاہدین کے مطابق تین گاڑیوں میں سوار مسلح افراد نے وہاں آ کر گراؤنڈ میں موجود افراد پر پہلے تین راکٹ فائرکیے بعد میں کلاشنکوفوں سے اندھادند فائرنگ کی جس کے باعث جانی نقصان زیادہ ہوا ہے۔
پولیس کے مطابق واقعہ میں ہلاک ہونے والوں میں سے زیادہ تر کا تعلق شیعہ مسلک سے ہے جبکہ کالعدم تنظیم لشکرِ جھنگوی نے اس حملے کی ذمہ داری قبول کر لی ہے۔
پولیس نے اس واقعہ کو فرقہ وارانہ دہشتگردی قرار دے کر نامعلوم افراد کے خلاف مقدمہ درج کر کے ان کی کی تلاش شروع کر دی ہے۔
واقعہ کے خلاف مشتعل مظاہرین نے کوئٹہ کے مغربی بائی پاس روڈ احتجاجاً بند کر کے مطالبہ کیا ہے کہ واقعہ میں ملوث افراد کو فوری طور پرگرفتار کیا جائے، تاہم بعد میں پولیس اور سیکورٹی فورسز کی بھاری نفری نے موقع پر پہنچ کر مظاہرین سے مذاکرات کیے اور راستہ بحال کروایا۔
Source,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/pakistan/2011/05/110505_quetta_killing_a.shtml
8 killed in rocket attack in Quetta, SW Pakistan
12:06, May 06, 2011
At least eight people were killed early Friday morning as unknown militants fired rockets at the people doing exercises at a soccer ground in the Hazara town of Quetta, a capital city of Balochistan province in southwest Pakistan, reported local English TV channel Express.
According to the local media reports, the attack took place at about 7:00 a.m. local time when six to eight unknown militants riding in two cars attacked the people who were doing morning exercises in a soccer ground in the city.
The militants first fired indiscriminately at the people in the ground, then fired three rockets at them, said eyewitnesses.
The attackers fled the scene after a brief fire exchange with the police. Police have cordoned off the area and the dead and injured have been shifted to nearby hospital.
Hospital sources said that some of the injured were in critical condition and the death toll could further rise.
Friday morning's incident is the third terrorist attack reported in Pakistan since the killing of the al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden in the country's northwest city of Abbottabad in an early Monday morning's operation conducted by the U.S. special task force. Pakistan Taliban (TTP) vowed to avenge the killing of bin Laden by threatening terrorist attacks in the country.
On Thursday evening, the police in the country's northwestern Dera Ismail Khan district foiled an attempt by two suicide bombers to attack a checkpoint in the district. Police fired at the two suicide bombers before they reached the checkpoint in a car laden with an estimated 120 kg of explosives. The firing caused a huge blast of the car which killed the two men inside right on the spot.
On Monday afternoon, immediately following the killing of Osama bin Laden, a blast in a mosque in the city of Charsadda in northwestern Pakistan killed four people and injured 11 others as most of them were police or police family members as the mosque is close to a police station in the city.
Source: Xinhua
At least eight people were killed early Friday morning as unknown militants fired rockets at the people doing exercises at a soccer ground in the Hazara town of Quetta, a capital city of Balochistan province in southwest Pakistan, reported local English TV channel Express.
According to the local media reports, the attack took place at about 7:00 a.m. local time when six to eight unknown militants riding in two cars attacked the people who were doing morning exercises in a soccer ground in the city.
The militants first fired indiscriminately at the people in the ground, then fired three rockets at them, said eyewitnesses.
The attackers fled the scene after a brief fire exchange with the police. Police have cordoned off the area and the dead and injured have been shifted to nearby hospital.
Hospital sources said that some of the injured were in critical condition and the death toll could further rise.
Friday morning's incident is the third terrorist attack reported in Pakistan since the killing of the al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden in the country's northwest city of Abbottabad in an early Monday morning's operation conducted by the U.S. special task force. Pakistan Taliban (TTP) vowed to avenge the killing of bin Laden by threatening terrorist attacks in the country.
On Thursday evening, the police in the country's northwestern Dera Ismail Khan district foiled an attempt by two suicide bombers to attack a checkpoint in the district. Police fired at the two suicide bombers before they reached the checkpoint in a car laden with an estimated 120 kg of explosives. The firing caused a huge blast of the car which killed the two men inside right on the spot.
On Monday afternoon, immediately following the killing of Osama bin Laden, a blast in a mosque in the city of Charsadda in northwestern Pakistan killed four people and injured 11 others as most of them were police or police family members as the mosque is close to a police station in the city.
Source: Xinhua
Militants kill at least 6 in Pakistan
By the CNN Wire Staff
May 6, 2011 -- Updated 0901 GMT (1701 HKT)
Pakistani Shiite Muslims gather during a road block protest in Quetta on Friday following the attack
(CNN) -- Militants in two vehicles fired a rocket and guns at people in southwestern Pakistan on Friday, leaving six dead and nine injured, a senior police official said.
The militants targeted a graveyard in Hazara area, said Muhammad Dawood Junejo, a Quetta police officer.
"Initially, they fired a rocket and then started firing on people in the graveyard," the officer said.
The officer said the incident seems to be an act of sectarian attack.
Quetta is the capital of the Balochistan province, which has had militant attacks in the past.
Last year, about 50 minority Shiites were killed when a suicide bomber struck an Al Quds rally in September.
May 6, 2011 -- Updated 0901 GMT (1701 HKT)
Pakistani Shiite Muslims gather during a road block protest in Quetta on Friday following the attack
(CNN) -- Militants in two vehicles fired a rocket and guns at people in southwestern Pakistan on Friday, leaving six dead and nine injured, a senior police official said.
The militants targeted a graveyard in Hazara area, said Muhammad Dawood Junejo, a Quetta police officer.
"Initially, they fired a rocket and then started firing on people in the graveyard," the officer said.
The officer said the incident seems to be an act of sectarian attack.
Quetta is the capital of the Balochistan province, which has had militant attacks in the past.
Last year, about 50 minority Shiites were killed when a suicide bomber struck an Al Quds rally in September.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
At least 8 Pakistani Shi'ites (Hazaras) killed in suspected militant attack
ISLAMABAD | Thu May 5, 2011 10:52pm EDT
ISLAMABAD May 6 (Reuters) - Suspected Islamist militants on Friday opened fire on a group of Pakistani Shi'ites in the southwestern town of Quetta, killing at least 8 and wounding 10, police said.
Police official Hamid Shakil said the Shi'ites were in a neighbourhood park when they were shot at. The attackers fled, he said.
Sunni Muslim militants often attack Shi'ites, which they view as heretics. Friday's shooting comes a few days after U.S. commandos killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.
(Reporting by Zeeshan Haider, editing by Miral Fahmy)
ISLAMABAD May 6 (Reuters) - Suspected Islamist militants on Friday opened fire on a group of Pakistani Shi'ites in the southwestern town of Quetta, killing at least 8 and wounding 10, police said.
Police official Hamid Shakil said the Shi'ites were in a neighbourhood park when they were shot at. The attackers fled, he said.
Sunni Muslim militants often attack Shi'ites, which they view as heretics. Friday's shooting comes a few days after U.S. commandos killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.
(Reporting by Zeeshan Haider, editing by Miral Fahmy)
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
The path to destruction
In his latest online Afghanistan dispatch, Jason Burke returns to Buddha-less Bamiyan and reflects on how the Taliban's act of cultural destruction marked a turning-point for the regime.
Jason Burke in Afghanistan
Observer.co.uk, Sunday 5 May 2002 12.59 BST
Article history
It is an astonishingly beautiful place. Overhead a keen, high altitude wind hauls thin streaks of cirrus across the bright, clear blue sky. To the south there are high mountains, covered in thick spring snow. Beneath them there are the rocky brown slopes of the rolling hills sliced by steep, narrow valleys that finally broaden into one plain ten miles wide and full of fields and low mud houses and slender ash trees that are painfully graceful. At dawn their leaves catch the light before anything else.
Except of course the great cliff where the Buddhas once stood. Its sandstone runs through a dozen shades of blue and pink and orange before settling on a washed out yellow. Bamiyan, the high mountain province in the centre of Afghanistan, has been famous for 1,700 years for the two statues of the Lord Buddha carved into the bluffs that dominate the valley. Last spring the Taliban dynamited both of them. It was only when standing beneath the empty cavities, the largest more than 200ft high, that you can appreciate the crime.
To those of us who had been watching the Taliban for years the destruction of the Buddhas showed that they were changing. In a sense the hardline Islamic militia's eventual demise became inevitable from that moment. I thought it was always too easy to accept the caricature of the Taliban as evil, violent misogynists who ruled by terror alone. Partly, I felt sorry for men whose lives had so obviously been ruined by war and who were trying to recreate some romantic, albeit twisted, vision of what their childhoods and lives should have been like; partly through irritation at the kneejerk Western reaction to the Taliban, who had, after all, been welcomed by many of their countrymen; and partly because I had been in Kandahar, the southern Afghan city that was their spritual and political headqaurters, when in 1998 President Clinton had sent cruise missiles to strike bin Laden's bases in the east of the country. Then the Taliban protected me from angry mobs out to avenge themselves on Westerners. I suppose I felt I owed it to them to try and understand before I condemned.
But looking at the ruins of the Bamiyan buddhas - the rubble is covered by a faded blue tarpaulin that flaps in the breeze - it was impossible to feel much sympathy for the men in the black turbans.
We now know that the influence of al'Qaeda on the Taliban leadership was critical in the decision to blow up the buddhas. Letters found in houses in Kabul show that bin Laden and other senior figures in al'Qaeda leant heavily on Mullah Mohammed Omar, the reclusive one-eyed cleric who led the Talibs, to destroy the statues despite, or rather because of, the international outrage at their plans. Ostensibly the buddhas were blown up because Islam permits no graven images. Actually it was a giant V-sign flicked at the world.
The Taliban seized Kabul and effective power in September 1996. Then they were pretty much unconcerned by the rest of the world. Afghanistan was not just the limit of their ambitions but the limit of their worldview. In long conversations with senior Talibs, even as late as 1998, it was clear that they knew where Pakistan and Iran were, had a fair idea where to find the Gulf but were very sketchy on the exact whereabouts of pretty much anywhere else.
But, by last autumn, Mullah Omar was making specific statements about Iraq and Palestine. The change was due to al'Qaeda and bin Laden.
We are now learning much more about how that happened. It had been old mujahideen commanders who had invited bin Laden back into Afghanistan and the Saudi had to launch a concerted campaign to build a relationship with the Taliban when they came to power. He did it well, but not without some difficulty.
I think the crunch point came the end of 1999 when Mullah Omar gave in to the moderates within the Taliban and successfully eradicated the opium crop - at considerable political and financial cost. Instead of the international recognition and aid that the moderates had assured him the Taliban would recieve they got sanctions and opprobrium instead. The question of bin Laden's presence in the country - described to me as a 'liability' by senior Taliban ideologues at the time - was the subject of desultory negotiations with the US and Saudi but that was all.
The moderates had the rug - no doubt it was a beautiful antique Afghan jaldar bokhar 6ft x 4ft - pulled from under them. And the hardliners decided that bin Laden and his associates were right. It was them against the world.
It took me a day to drive the winding valley that leads from Bamiyan down to the broad Shomali plains where the British and American forces have their main base. After dumping my bags on a free cot in Tent Five of Viper City and picking up an MRE ration pack I went for a run. Overhead Chinooks swung low overhead blasting the dust with their rotor blades. I ran past the British marines encampment, festooned with Union jacks and games of football, past the artillery park and on to the old Soviet-built strip. At the A-10 Tankbuster jets I turned round.
Bearded American special forces soldiers were sprint training along the scarred concrete, each holding a handgun. It was early evening. The light in Afghanistan has a hard-edged metallic quality that I have never seen anywhere else. The men and their machines stood out very sharply against the distant plain and the far off hills. To the north lay the Hindu Kush, to the west was Hazarajat and Bamiyan. I wondered if there was a point when the war could have been averted. Maybe at the time of the Taliban's opium ban. And if so, what other decisions are being taken now in Washington and London and elsewhere. And where will that mean I will be running between the jets and the howitzers in three years time.
Source,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/may/05/afghanistan.jasonburke
Jason Burke in Afghanistan
Observer.co.uk, Sunday 5 May 2002 12.59 BST
Article history
It is an astonishingly beautiful place. Overhead a keen, high altitude wind hauls thin streaks of cirrus across the bright, clear blue sky. To the south there are high mountains, covered in thick spring snow. Beneath them there are the rocky brown slopes of the rolling hills sliced by steep, narrow valleys that finally broaden into one plain ten miles wide and full of fields and low mud houses and slender ash trees that are painfully graceful. At dawn their leaves catch the light before anything else.
Except of course the great cliff where the Buddhas once stood. Its sandstone runs through a dozen shades of blue and pink and orange before settling on a washed out yellow. Bamiyan, the high mountain province in the centre of Afghanistan, has been famous for 1,700 years for the two statues of the Lord Buddha carved into the bluffs that dominate the valley. Last spring the Taliban dynamited both of them. It was only when standing beneath the empty cavities, the largest more than 200ft high, that you can appreciate the crime.
To those of us who had been watching the Taliban for years the destruction of the Buddhas showed that they were changing. In a sense the hardline Islamic militia's eventual demise became inevitable from that moment. I thought it was always too easy to accept the caricature of the Taliban as evil, violent misogynists who ruled by terror alone. Partly, I felt sorry for men whose lives had so obviously been ruined by war and who were trying to recreate some romantic, albeit twisted, vision of what their childhoods and lives should have been like; partly through irritation at the kneejerk Western reaction to the Taliban, who had, after all, been welcomed by many of their countrymen; and partly because I had been in Kandahar, the southern Afghan city that was their spritual and political headqaurters, when in 1998 President Clinton had sent cruise missiles to strike bin Laden's bases in the east of the country. Then the Taliban protected me from angry mobs out to avenge themselves on Westerners. I suppose I felt I owed it to them to try and understand before I condemned.
But looking at the ruins of the Bamiyan buddhas - the rubble is covered by a faded blue tarpaulin that flaps in the breeze - it was impossible to feel much sympathy for the men in the black turbans.
We now know that the influence of al'Qaeda on the Taliban leadership was critical in the decision to blow up the buddhas. Letters found in houses in Kabul show that bin Laden and other senior figures in al'Qaeda leant heavily on Mullah Mohammed Omar, the reclusive one-eyed cleric who led the Talibs, to destroy the statues despite, or rather because of, the international outrage at their plans. Ostensibly the buddhas were blown up because Islam permits no graven images. Actually it was a giant V-sign flicked at the world.
The Taliban seized Kabul and effective power in September 1996. Then they were pretty much unconcerned by the rest of the world. Afghanistan was not just the limit of their ambitions but the limit of their worldview. In long conversations with senior Talibs, even as late as 1998, it was clear that they knew where Pakistan and Iran were, had a fair idea where to find the Gulf but were very sketchy on the exact whereabouts of pretty much anywhere else.
But, by last autumn, Mullah Omar was making specific statements about Iraq and Palestine. The change was due to al'Qaeda and bin Laden.
We are now learning much more about how that happened. It had been old mujahideen commanders who had invited bin Laden back into Afghanistan and the Saudi had to launch a concerted campaign to build a relationship with the Taliban when they came to power. He did it well, but not without some difficulty.
I think the crunch point came the end of 1999 when Mullah Omar gave in to the moderates within the Taliban and successfully eradicated the opium crop - at considerable political and financial cost. Instead of the international recognition and aid that the moderates had assured him the Taliban would recieve they got sanctions and opprobrium instead. The question of bin Laden's presence in the country - described to me as a 'liability' by senior Taliban ideologues at the time - was the subject of desultory negotiations with the US and Saudi but that was all.
The moderates had the rug - no doubt it was a beautiful antique Afghan jaldar bokhar 6ft x 4ft - pulled from under them. And the hardliners decided that bin Laden and his associates were right. It was them against the world.
It took me a day to drive the winding valley that leads from Bamiyan down to the broad Shomali plains where the British and American forces have their main base. After dumping my bags on a free cot in Tent Five of Viper City and picking up an MRE ration pack I went for a run. Overhead Chinooks swung low overhead blasting the dust with their rotor blades. I ran past the British marines encampment, festooned with Union jacks and games of football, past the artillery park and on to the old Soviet-built strip. At the A-10 Tankbuster jets I turned round.
Bearded American special forces soldiers were sprint training along the scarred concrete, each holding a handgun. It was early evening. The light in Afghanistan has a hard-edged metallic quality that I have never seen anywhere else. The men and their machines stood out very sharply against the distant plain and the far off hills. To the north lay the Hindu Kush, to the west was Hazarajat and Bamiyan. I wondered if there was a point when the war could have been averted. Maybe at the time of the Taliban's opium ban. And if so, what other decisions are being taken now in Washington and London and elsewhere. And where will that mean I will be running between the jets and the howitzers in three years time.
Source,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/may/05/afghanistan.jasonburke
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Better life main reason for refugees' journey
Andrew Probyn, Nick Butterly
May 4, 2011
ECONOMIC deprivation rather than the fear of persecution is driving Afghan Hazaras to risk their lives to come to Australia, a previously secret government-commissioned report has found.
The Gillard government contracted a Kabul-based communications company to find out what people from the Afghan ethnic minority knew about the risks inherent in using people smugglers to get to Australia.
The report by Wise Strategic Communications, released under freedom of information laws, found that though the majority of Afghan Hazaras were aware of the dangers in making the treacherous journey by boat to Australia, only a few realised they also risked deportation and detention.
Wise, which conducted 50 interviews and 10 focus groups in Hazara enclaves in four Afghan provinces last year, found many respondents believed the risks of drowning and being ripped off by people smugglers were outweighed by the prospect of being accepted by Australia as refugees.
The $72,000 research discovered many Hazaras strongly believed that travelling to Australia practically guaranteed refugee status.
While the focus groups in Kabul found respondents largely rejected illegal immigration out of a sense of patriotic duty and the belief they should stay and assist the reconstruction of the country, those in poorer, less-educated areas believed leaving for Australia was a ''survival strategy'' worthy of the risk.
Of the 7668 unlawful arrivals by boat since January last year, 3306 were Afghan. In this period, only 83 have returned home - mostly voluntarily - including six Afghans.
The rejection rate for Afghan refugee claims is about 50 per cent - up from 10 per cent 18 months ago - but 70 per cent of those rejected have their refugee status confirmed on appeal.
''Lower-income classes feel their opportunities are virtually non-existent and that clandestine migration is their only option,'' the report says about those in Bamyan province.
''The vast majority of focus group participants from Ghazni regard migration to Australia as a livelihood strategy and coping mechanism to respond to social and economic needs.''
The report recommends the Australian government emphasise not only the safety risks from people smuggling but highlight the potential for repatriation and detention.
A spokeswoman for Customs and Border Protection, which ordered the Wise report, said the government was in the early stages of working with the Afghan government on a public information campaign about the dangers of people smuggling and human trafficking.
Meanwhile, the only rescue boat the Australian Federal Police had stationed on Christmas Island as last year's asylum-seeker tragedy unfolded has been declared unsafe for use in even moderately rough weather by the government's leading safety authority.
The AFP has revealed it was forced to slap severe restrictions on the use of its fleet of LeisureCat 8000 patrol boats after the Australian Maritime Safety Authority ruled the vessels were too heavy and could only operate in smooth seas.
Source,
http://www.smh.com.au/national/better-life-main-reason-for-refugees-journey-20110503-1e6ui.html
May 4, 2011
ECONOMIC deprivation rather than the fear of persecution is driving Afghan Hazaras to risk their lives to come to Australia, a previously secret government-commissioned report has found.
The Gillard government contracted a Kabul-based communications company to find out what people from the Afghan ethnic minority knew about the risks inherent in using people smugglers to get to Australia.
The report by Wise Strategic Communications, released under freedom of information laws, found that though the majority of Afghan Hazaras were aware of the dangers in making the treacherous journey by boat to Australia, only a few realised they also risked deportation and detention.
Wise, which conducted 50 interviews and 10 focus groups in Hazara enclaves in four Afghan provinces last year, found many respondents believed the risks of drowning and being ripped off by people smugglers were outweighed by the prospect of being accepted by Australia as refugees.
The $72,000 research discovered many Hazaras strongly believed that travelling to Australia practically guaranteed refugee status.
While the focus groups in Kabul found respondents largely rejected illegal immigration out of a sense of patriotic duty and the belief they should stay and assist the reconstruction of the country, those in poorer, less-educated areas believed leaving for Australia was a ''survival strategy'' worthy of the risk.
Of the 7668 unlawful arrivals by boat since January last year, 3306 were Afghan. In this period, only 83 have returned home - mostly voluntarily - including six Afghans.
The rejection rate for Afghan refugee claims is about 50 per cent - up from 10 per cent 18 months ago - but 70 per cent of those rejected have their refugee status confirmed on appeal.
''Lower-income classes feel their opportunities are virtually non-existent and that clandestine migration is their only option,'' the report says about those in Bamyan province.
''The vast majority of focus group participants from Ghazni regard migration to Australia as a livelihood strategy and coping mechanism to respond to social and economic needs.''
The report recommends the Australian government emphasise not only the safety risks from people smuggling but highlight the potential for repatriation and detention.
A spokeswoman for Customs and Border Protection, which ordered the Wise report, said the government was in the early stages of working with the Afghan government on a public information campaign about the dangers of people smuggling and human trafficking.
Meanwhile, the only rescue boat the Australian Federal Police had stationed on Christmas Island as last year's asylum-seeker tragedy unfolded has been declared unsafe for use in even moderately rough weather by the government's leading safety authority.
The AFP has revealed it was forced to slap severe restrictions on the use of its fleet of LeisureCat 8000 patrol boats after the Australian Maritime Safety Authority ruled the vessels were too heavy and could only operate in smooth seas.
Source,
http://www.smh.com.au/national/better-life-main-reason-for-refugees-journey-20110503-1e6ui.html
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