Afghan refugees living in a staging camp in neighbouring Pakistan were yesterday transferred to the first of 11 new sites approved by the government which could hold more than 150,000.
Some 244 of the 3,600 people in the Killi Faizo staging camp near Chaman, in the southerly Baluchistan province, were moved by bus yesterday to a new site still under construction 25 km away.
The UN High Commission for Refugees said last night it intends transferring all the residents of the Killi Faizo site to the new Roghani camp by Wednesday, thereby freeing up the camp for the processing of further new arrivals fleeing the US airstrikes.
Roghani is one of three planned UNHCR camps in Baluchistan province and eight in the North West Frontier province which the Pakistan government gave approval for last week.
Further north, UNHCR trucks left at the weekend for a new camp of Katkai, 100 km from the northwestern city of Peshawar.
The convoy included tents to house administration facilities and store aid blankets and tents for the refugees who are to due to start arriving at the rate of 500 a day on Wednesday.
Those moved to Katkai will be chosen from the most destitute in Jallozai camp, a squalid encampment outside Peshawar with no proper facilities and no formal recognition as a refugee camp.
Pakistan's borders with Afghanistan remain closed, with only those considered vulnerable such as women, children, the elderly and sick people allowed to enter through official crossings.
The UNHCR estimates that about 135,000 people have fled Afghanistan recently, with many entering Pakistan illegally through its highly porous 1,400 mile long border.
Many such people are staying in old refugee camps or with family or friends in urban areas.
Many are not accessing UNHCR aid for fear of being detected by the Pakistani authorities and deported.
Mr Peter Kessler, a UNHCR spokesman in the capital of Baluchistan province, Quetta, said yesterday's transfer of refugees to the Roghani camp was a small step but more needed to be done.
"The (Pakistan) government has begun to acknowledge that there are people in need. They've said we can begin to move 3,600 people from Killi Faizo but there are hundreds of thousands more Afghans living in cities like Quetta hoping for word that they won't be deported."
The UNHCR is due this week to begin encouraging such so-called "invisible refugees" to come forward to seek aid free from fear of being deported.