Widow Bibi Hura and her four children were among the first families to seek refuge at the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) new emergency camp at Killi Fiazo, near the Afghanistan border at Chaman, in Pakistan, last Wednesday.
The opening of the staging camp represented a major breakthrough for the agency, which has been negotiating with the Pakistan authorities for more than a month for permission to establish a series of camps to cater for the expected flood of Afghan refugees.
Pakistan has closed its two main border crossings, at Torkham in the North Western Frontier Province and at Chaman in the southern Bolochistan Province, to people fleeing United States bombs and hunger in Afghanistan.
The government is insisting that there are already more than two million Afghan refugees in the country, victims of previous conflicts, and it cannot cope with any more.
On Tuesday night, there was a minor breakthrough, with the Pakistani authorities finally agreeing that the UNHCR could open the emergency camp at Killi Fiazo to deal with the most vulnerable cases only.
Bibi and her four children arrived at around 11 a.m. As they trundled into the camp, situated on a flat, dusty, barren site, UNHCR staff was erecting tents and organising food and water distribution.
Sitting in her empty tent, with her possessions lined up outside, Bibi told me she lost her husband and one-and-a-half-year-old daughter in a bomb blast near their home in the Afghan capital, Kabul, in the early days of the US strikes.
"The shippers of the bombs came and wounded my husband and daughter. They died," she said.
Four of her five sons were sitting on the floor surrounding their mother protectively. Her fifth son has gone to get some food from aid agencies.
She had enough money to pay to be driven to the border and got across at Chaman without any trouble from police.
An estimated 10,000 refugees have streamed across this desolate crossing in the past week. On one day alone there was an influx of an estimated 5,000 people, most of them ragged, frightened and bringing with them only what they could carry.
There were ugly scenes when border guards fired shots and tried to beat refugees back with huge bamboo sticks.
Crying children, women covered head-to-toe in veils and dust, and hobbling old men are all joining in an exodus from Afghanistan that humanitarian officials say represents only a tiny fraction of the number who might flee in coming weeks if fighting intensifies and hunger grows sharper and more widespread. The human flood at Chaman continues, despite the fact that the frontier remains officially closed to refugees.
While Pakistan is still insisting that only those with valid travel documents are to be allowed in, large numbers are getting across the porous border crossing by paying money to smugglers.
Hardship cases are allowed through at the discretion of Pakistani border guards and Taliban authorities on the other side. Only a few fighting-age men seem to be coming across. The vast majority are women, children and the elderly.
At the border point, you can see in the distance on the Afghan side the pure-white flag of the Taliban. There are reports that they are separating groups by gender in order to conscript fighting men.
Most of those who crossed this week are from Kandahar, the nearest major Afghan City, 125 miles to the northwest. A Taliban stronghold, the city has been pounded repeatedly by air-strikes since the US-led bombardment began on October 7th.
According to the UNHCR, 90 families have arrived at Killi Fiazo in the Balochistan Province since Wednesday.
Provisional results from a UNHCR survey shows that 60,000 refugees have come to Pakistan through the border at Torkham since September 11th. A survey is currently under way to determine how many crossed at Balochistan. There are rough estimates that 20,000 may have arrived.
The UNHCR has been accused of hyping up the refugee crisis by predicting a flood of one million into Pakistan. However, spokeswoman Ms Fatoumata Kaba says the agency is still sticking by that figure. "That is the worst-case scenario but we are still saying one million may arrive," she told The Irish Times.
In the short term, the UNHCR is making preparations to cope with an influx of 300,000. Two sites 13 kilometres from Chaman, at Roghani and Tor Tangi, are currently being prepared to cater for 50,000 refugees.
"As soon as the Pakistan government gives us the go ahead, we will start placing families here," Ms Kaba said.
"We are going to push and push until they agree to open the border. There is a huge humanitarian tragedy under way in Afghanistan and they can't close their eyes to it forever."
Irish aid organisation Concern is co-ordinating the sanitation and site planning at the two sites.
Concern area co-ordinator Mr Niall Roche is overseeing a team of seven who are putting together a site plan and survey. The work is being undertaken in conjunction with Concern's local partner, Guardians.
Since September 11th, £1.7 million has been donated to Concern for the Afghan refugee crisis.
Mr Roche does not believe the UNHCR is hyping its figures. "I would prefer to be prepared for a worse-case scenario rather than be caught and not be ready," he said.
In Killi Fiazo on Wednesday, Abdul Momin, his 18-year-old wife and two children - Gul, aged one, and Taj, aged two - moved into the tent near to the widow from Kabul.
He also had with him seven-year-old Sabara, his dead brother's daughter.
"All her family are dead. She is an orphan so we are minding her."
Sabara was giving water to Gul from a dirty watering can. All the family has had to eat since arriving were high-protein bars distributed by the UNHCR. Their last meal, which consisted of bread, was 24 hours earlier.
Two-year-old Taj was chewing slowly on a piece of Nan bread, which a family in a neighbouring tent had given her.
Abdul also left behind 25 goats and the crop from his small patch of land. "I had brought in my harvest and was getting work in Kabul as a labourer before the bombs."
Would he go back? "I would go back to my home tonight if there was peace."
