1.
SV PAN Wounded Mujahadin walks on crutches into clinic, at refugee camp near Peshwar, Pakistan
0.14

2.
CU PAN INTERIOR Wounded young man in clinic with bandaged foot
0.21

3.
CU Wounded man having chest treated
0.37

4.
SV EXTERIOR Quilts loaded on to lorries (3 shots)
1.12

5.
CU Decorated side of lorry
1.16

6.
SV PAN Two lorries loaded with quilts drive off (3 shots)
1.44

7.
GV Tented Afghan refugee camp
1.50

8.
SV PAN UP Pakistan Government official with check sheet watches as grain distributed to heads of families (2 shots)
2.02

9.
CU AND SV Man weighing grain and pounding into refugee sacks (4 shots)
2.38

10.
GV AND CU Young Afghan boys practising with sling-shots, watched by their parents (3 shots)
2.59




Initials SW/





Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: Pakistan officials now estimate that one-and-a-quarter million refugees have crossed the border to the safety of camps along Pakistan's north-west frontier. The refugees, some of them wounded Afghan guerrillas, claim they have had to negotiate new dangers along the mountain passes into Pakistan; Soviet Army land mines.

SYNOPSIS: This is one of the makeshift hospitals set up to treat the wounded among the refugees who have made their way into Northwest Pakistan. At one of the clinics run by Afghan guerrillas as a back-up to the Pakistani medical facilities, doctors are treating at least a dozen young men with severe leg and foot injuries, apparently inflicted by anti-personnel mines. According to the Mujahadin guerrillas, the mines are being dumped along the mountain passes into Pakistan from Soviet helicopters, which scatter them, dozens at a time in canisters.

Despite their sometimes crippling injuries, the guerrillas say they are the lucky ones. Many refugees, they say, are unable to spot the land mines until it is too late. The mines are not the only hazards facing the refugees. The first snows of a sever winter are expected in the frontier mountains within a fortnight.

Aid organisations are desperately trying to supply blankets and quilts to the refugees before the freeze sets in. This batch of quilts was sent by the Catholic and Protestant Churches' Inter-Aid Committee, using brightly decorated Afghan trucks which crossed the border with the exodus of refugees.

As the number of people crowding the camps grows, the Pakistan Government and aid organisations in the area are having trouble coping with the demand for food, clothing and medical care. The rapid approach of winter has made their task even more urgent. In Peshawar alone, the number of refugees has more than doubled in the past three months to about 400-thousand. The refugees are being fed, but the aid administration is straining under the load. Officials keep a close check on the amount of grain handed out to the refugees. The head of each family collects the daily hand-out of grain, and then it is up to him to feed his family.

Youngsters like these, in one of the refugee camps just across the border from Afghanistan could become the guerrillas' secret weapon in their fight against the Soviet forces. The simple sling-shot is being tried as a make-shift but, they hope, an effective weapon against the mines they claim have been laid by Soviet troops.