Heavy rains drown 11 Afghan refugees in Pakistan

MULTAN, Pakistan, Jan 3 (AFP) - Ten Afghan refugee children and one woman drowned in a river in northwest Pakistan after being swept away by heavy rain, police said Monday.
"Rescue teams have fished out the bodies of 11 Afghan refugees who drowned in the River Kurram on Sunday," senior police officer Fayyaz Ahmed Mir told AFP.
The dead were from the southern Afghan province of Khost, who were living on the bank of the river, near Mianwali, some 260 kilometres (161 miles) north of Multan, he said.
Another 16 members of their clan survived, the official added.
Some 1.1 million Afghan refugees still live in camps in Pakistan while between 500,000 and two million are believed to be living independently in towns and cities.
They are the remainder of over four million refugees who fled to Pakistan over the past quarter-century to escape hardship brought by war and drought.

01/03/2005 13:10 GMT - AFP