At Torkham, in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, the tired, hungry Afghan refugees are arriving from the capital, Kabul, and its surrounds. At Chaman, along the southern Pakistan border, they are coming from Kandahar, the Taliban's spiritual capital.
Walking, on horseback, in pick-up trucks and carts, these resilient people are running from 23 years of conflict. They fear that an attack from the United States following the terrorist strikes on the Pentagon in Washington and the World Trade Centre in New York will be the one to finally destroy their war-ravaged country.
Their torture was exacerbated yesterday by heavy rains, which for a time doused north-west Pakistan.
Aid agencies said only a minority of refugees had been officially allowed over the border as the Pakistan authorities maintain a tight seal on their country, fearful of an influx of thousands of refugees.
The border at Torkham has been closed for several days. On Tuesday the authorities in Chaman shut the doors.
The few with visa permits have managed to get across, heading for camps in Pershawar city in the north and Quetta city in the south. Others have trekked across dangerous mountain terrain to enter Pakistan unofficially. Payment of money to a border guard usually secures their passage.
It is estimated that as many as 70,000 refugees are waiting at various border points to be let in. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is predicting that in the next few days this figure could swell to up to one million. Yesterday, it went into emergency mode to deal with the possible influx.
UNHCR teams are working with the government of Pakistan and other countries around landlocked, battered Afghanistan to assess the needs and the number of refugees expected in coming days.
The UNHCR spokesman, Mr Yusuf Hassan, said the Afghan refugees have no safety net. "They have fallen through." He said refugees who do get in have only squalid, makeshift camps to greet them. The main camp in Jalozai, outside Peshawar, is already bursting at the seams, with reported deaths of up to 15 people a week, mainly children. Disease and infection are rife.
"Many refugees are seen begging on the streets, their kids are scavenging in dustbins in Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar and other places."
Mr Hassan said the crisis building in Pakistan is "one of the most difficult refugee situations you can find in the world".
Across the North West Frontier Province there are other large camps comprised of tents and mud houses. There are no schools for the children, scant medical facilities and barely enough food to survive.
Meanwhile, those Afghanis left behind are facing starvation and death this winter. A draft nutrition report from the Irish aid organisation Concern warns that parts of Afghanistan are on the brink of famine.
The survey shows that one in five women, and one in 11 children aged under five, are suffering from malnutrition in the Kosher Valley in Badakshan Province in the north east of Afghanistan. This is one of the few areas not ruled by the Taliban regime - it is controlled by the Northern Alliance.
The country director for Concern in Afghanistan, Mr Johnathan Patrick, told The Irish Times yesterday that people will begin to die once winter sets in in about eight weeks' time.
He said the nutritional status of people was now very poor and many of the coping strategies were exhausted.
Three Concern consultants, Mr Steve Collins, Mr Mark Myatt and Ms Gwen Desplats, carried out the nutrition report. They had no chance to complete it as they had to evacuate the country, along with other Concern expatriate staff, last week, after the attacks in the US.
The report warns there is only a short window of opportunity before winter conditions make access to the more mountainous areas impossible, and before there is a substantial loss of life.
It warns that the authorities in Badakshan are not capable of responding to the impending crisis. "If humanitarian agencies do not take immediate action there will be substantial loss of life during the coming winter," it says.
"The most pressing problems facing the population are lack of food, insufficient fuel for heating and poor access to health care." It says inaccessibility to motorised transport and the approach of winter, when temperatures will fall to minus 15, will compound these problems. The report showed that the yield of wheat per seed this year was 1.4g compared to 5.5g per seed last year.
Livestock prices have plummeted. Two years ago people would get 180 kg of wheat for a cow. This year they get only 40 kg.
Wage levels have also come down drastically. In 1999 a worker could earn less than a dollar a day, an amount that would buy 5 kg of wheat, enough to feed an average family. Now the daily wage rate is 30 cents, which will buy only 1 kg of wheat.
Concern, which is Ireland's largest relief and development agency, has been operative in Afghanistan since 1998. Despite the withdrawal of expatriate staff last week 70 local employees will continue to provide food and shelter to up to 175,000 people in Takhar and Badakshan provinces near the Tajikistan border.
In addition, a member of the Concern team is travelling to neighbouring Tajikistan to explore the possibility of establishing a logistical base for the operation. It is hoped to deliver badly needed tents and food from there in the weeks ahead.
In their report, the authors of the survey said they submitted a preliminary document at this early stage because they felt the "extremely precarious" conditions in the Khosher region made it vital that Concern acted quickly "before the valley becomes inaccessible during the winter". The report proposes the start of a considerable upgrading of Concern's operations in Badakshan. The report says that "despite the positive noises that have been coming from WFP, we believe it unlikely that they will have the capacity to respond in an adequate and timely fashion to the impending crisis throughout Afghanistan. It is therefore likely that Concern will have to purchase and transport their own food into Badakshan. This point must be clarified with WFP as soon as possible as the winter will make transport into project sites impossible.
"If the reality is that WFP cannot move the quantities required, Concern must move very quickly to buy the grain regionally and transport it to the project sites before the end of November."
Catherine Redden adds from Islamabad: The aid agency GOAL, which had just started helping the World Food Programme distribute food in northern Afghanistan was withdrawn along with other foreign aid agencies in what they hope will be a short-term measure.
"GOAL personnel have been evacuated from Afghanistan and Pakistan temporarily for safety reasons and, hopefully, we will go back when it's safe," Michael Kiely, Assistant Director of GOAL told The Irish Times yesterday. "We are following the UN's advice and we hope to be back soon."