New Jalozai refugee camp, near the city of Peshawar in northwestern Pakistan, is home to approximately 50,000 Afghan refugees who have arrived in the country over the last nine months. New Jalozai is situated beside an older camp that is home to thousands of refugees who fled from civil conflict in Afghanistan during the 1980's and 1990's.
Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has been working in New Jalozai since November 2000. MSF runs a primary health care clinic in that camp that includes mother and child health services and a supplementary feeding center, as well as outreach, health education, nutritional monitoring, and vaccine programs. The organization also oversees the delivery of adequate supplies of clean water to the camp, maintains sanitation facilities, and provides shelter materials.
Despite the activities of MSF and other organizations, health problems persist in New Jalozai camp. Hot temperatures and the absence of adequate shelter have contributed to the high prevalence of dehydration. Dry air and dust exacerbate breathing problems and contribute to upper respiratory tract infections. Inadequate cooking facilities located near makeshift structures of blankets and plastic sheeting constitute fire hazards that regularly lead to severe burns.
Exacerbating the poor conditions in New Jalozai is the fact that it does not have formal status as a refugee camp. No registration has ever taken place in the camp, so it has been difficult to implement an effective system for meeting nutrition, health, sanitation, and shelter needs. This has resulted in substandard living conditions for tens of thousands of refugees at Jalozai, particularly the most vulnerable populations in the camp as well as those who arrived in the past few months and are not receiving adequate food distributions.
In late July 2001, University of Michigan School of Public Health student Serena Chaudhry traveled to Pakistan to research the health status, environmental conditions, and quality of life of the refugees in the Jalozai refugee camp. Chaudhry's method was not a typical written survey carried out by aid workers, but an innovative approach using photography to involve refugees themselves in the process.
Chaudhry recruited eight refugees, both male and female, between the ages of 18 and 36, gave them cameras, and asked them to take photographs of their environment and health problems over a two-day period. The photographs depict both the positive and negative aspects of life at Jalozai, and some of the ongoing health problems.
Upon her return to the United States, Chaudhry shared the results of her assessment with MSF. What follows here is a selection of the pictures taken by the refugees. The captions were written in Dari and translated into English. In some places, additional notes have been added to help give those who are unfamiliar with refugee camps a better idea of the difficult conditions the inhabitants of the camp are facing.
The refugees who participated in the project gave permission for these pictures to be used to help educate the public on the desperate conditions in the camp.