MOSCOW. Sept 28 (Interfax-AVN) - Russia will take part in the international forum on Afghan refugees and displaced persons, Deputy Emergencies Minister Yuri Brazhnikov told Interfax-Military News Agency on Friday.
The forum will open in Geneva on October 5 and will be chaired by U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers and U.N. Deputy Secretary General Kenzo Oshima. According to Brazhnikov, the Russian Emergencies Ministry sends an expert group to the forum taking into account its importance and peculiarities of the problem.
"In case of a wide-scale retaliatory operation of the United States in Afghanistan the number of refugees might reach 300,000 in the CIS territory," Brazhnikov said. In such situation the ministry is ready to provide Afghanistanis with foodstuffs, medicines and warm clothes as well as to deploy its multi-profile mobile hospital in Central Asia. "It is clear that the Russian ministry's efforts will not be enough. That is why our plans for Geneval go beyond co-ordinating our joint efforts for provision of help to Afghan refugees with the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Regugees. We will also try to attrack national rescue services of other countries," Brazhnikov stressed.
Brazhnikov will leave for Dushanbe on September 30. He will study the conditions of forthcoming assistance provision while travelling through Tajik close-to-border territories.