By Robert Evans GENEVA, Aug 20 (Reuters) - A United Nations envoy warned on Monday that there could be a huge surge of Afghans fleeing their homes, adding to the tens of thousands already displaced, if the conflict in the country continued at its present rate. Walter Kaelin, special representative of U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, also called on foreign and Afghan government forces fighting Taliban guerrillas to do more to avoid causing civilian casualties in their operations. "There is potential for a significant increase in the number of internally displaced persons if the conflict continues at the present pace," Kaelin said in a report issued in Geneva after a visit to Afghanistan. Kaelin used the term internally displaced, or IDPs, which is applied by the U.N. to people who have been forced from their homes but remain within their own country, rather than refugees, who flee from one country to another. Over the past year, he said, the fighting had already triggered the displacement of tens of thousands of people, leaving them in misery, without homes or livelihood. On top of the likely increase if the conflict continues, the numbers could go still higher if returnees from among the three million Afghans living in neighbouring Pakistan and Iran over the past 20 years could not resettle, he added. Kaelin gave no estimate of overall numbers of IDPs, but he said those who had fled in recent months were adding to the 130,000 living in provisional settlements in the south and southwest of the country for the past five or more years. These had been displaced by drought and insecurity. But across the country there were an unknown number of others forced to uproot because of human rights violations, intercommunal tensions and by floods and other natural disasters. NEED TO AVOID CIVILIAN DEATHS In his report, the U.N. envoy said all sides in the fighting -- which include United States and NATO forces backing the Afghan government against the Taliban -- should "scrupulously respect international humanitarian law." This included observing requirements "to distinguish at all times between civilians and combatants and the need to carry out anti-insurgency operations in a way that avoids disproportionate impacts causing civilian death," Kaelin said. Since U.S. forces entered Afghanistan in late 2001, they have on many occasions been accused by local people and some Afghan officials of indiscriminate bombing and shelling that left civilians dead and injured. But in his report the envoy also condemned what he called "the systematic disregard of international humanitarian law by the Taliban", which he said exposed civilians to high risk. The suffering of civilians was heightened by the fact that for security reasons humanitarian organisations could not get into areas most seriously affected by the fighting, he added.
