But compassion is wearing thin in both countries. Pakistan formally closed its border to Afghan refugees in November, but the policy is impossible to enforce and about 30,000 are known to have entered Pakistan since. Before the closure refugees would be met by aid workers and moved to camps, but now they enter a bureaucratic black hole. Conditions there have shocked relief workers and destroyed refugees' last shreds of dignity. There is no privacy.
People have to defecate in the open, in front of other members of their families.
These are proud people who have never been out of their country. Even during the Russian period in Afghanistan, they stayed. Now they are put in a position where they are helpless, desperate.