Afghan refugee children read the Quran, the holy book of Muslim,s in the Neyatak camp located in Zahedan, capital of Baluchistan privince in Iran, on October 18. About 4,000 Afghans live in the camp. Photo: AP/Wide World

Eighteen-year-old Shahnaz was 11 when she was forced to leave her home near Kabul, Afghanistan. Shahnaz and her family fled to a camp in Kamaz. They are displaced people, because they had to flee their homes but remain within their own country.

Their old home was a large house with a garden. They were forced to leave in 1992, when war hit the city of Kabul. For three years they moved around, staying with friends, family, and in shelters. But always they had to move again when bombs started dropping.

They arrived at the camp in 1995. Most of the people in the camp have lived there for years.

“Life in the camp is not much fun,” Shahnaz told representatives of Doctors Without Borders, an international group that provides refugees with food, basic health care, shelter materials, outside toilets, and water. The seven-member family now lives in a one-room shelter. In this room, they eat, sleep, and study. Shahnaz and her four sisters sleep under the same cover with their mother.

In the camp, they have to fetch water from a common tap. The only toilets are public. To use the toilet at night, Shahnaz must go out in the dark since there are no lights.

The camp is muddy, and there are no carpets. The people have only blankets and plastic sheets provided by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Shahnaz also has a small stove.

Shahnaz is lucky to go to school. “I know other girls who spend their time begging for a little bit of food in the town bazaar and others who have to weave carpets all day long,” she said. “I’ve really had enough of living in this muddy camp. And I’m not the only one. We are all fed up with it. Sure, we’re alive and we have a roof over our heads-but what will happen to us in the future?”

For years, people have had to flee their homes in Afghanistan, to escape war and drought. Like Shahnaz’s family, some have gone to camps within Afghanistan. Others, refugees, have left their homes and sought safety outside of Afghanistan. Afghan refugees have gone around the world, but most have landed in neighboring countries.

Now, with the U.S. bombing much of the country to force the Taliban to give up Osama bin Laden, even more people are fleeing their homes.

According to Human Rights Watch, about 3.7 million Afghan refugees have fled Afghanistan over the past two decades. About 1.5 million of them live in Iran, and more than 2 million live in Pakistan. In September, tens of thousands more Afghans fled their homes toward the Pakistan border. As of the third week of September there were nearly 1 million Afghans who were displaced inside their own country.

Afghans like Shahnaz, who are displaced to camps within Afghanistan, are in even more danger than before the U.S. started dropping bombs on the Taliban. Now, food and supplies cannot get into the camps. Aid workers have also had to leave the camps in Afghanistan.

Thousands of people are currently at Afghanistan’s borders, trying to get away from danger. But fleeing Afghans have nowhere to go. All of Afghanistan’s neighboring countries—Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Iran, and China—have closed their borders. Neighboring countries do not want more Afghan refugees because they already have so many.