Tajik refugees drown in river

GENEVA (Reuter) - About 200 refugees fleeing Tajikistan for Afghanistan are believed to have drowned crossing the Amu Darya river on the frontier.

About 5,000 refugees of an estimated 62,000 massed at the border crossed the river on Sunday, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

On their arrival in Afghanistan 16 refugees told UNHCR officials they had been 'attacked by helicopters'. A UNHCR spokeswoman said: 'They are cold, hungry and in pretty bad shape.' One in 10 people in Tajikistan is estimated to have been displaced by civil war.