A MALVERN aid worker is poised to fly out to Iran to set up camps for refugees from Afghanistan as the country's humanitarian crisis deepens.

Chris Dyer is part of an Oxfam team which could leave for Tehran as soon as Sunday providing all the paperwork comes through.

Oxfam wants to set up camps near the Afghan border to help deal with hundreds of thousands of refugees who are expected to flee the strife-torn country.

Mr Dyer, a logistics expert, said a humanitarian catastrophe was expected in the area even before the terrorist attacks and the US bombardment of Afghanistan.

He will be going in with a team which will include public health and sanitation engineers and a nutritionist, to see how bad the situation is.

"I don't really know what to expect at the moment; that is why we are going there, to assess the situation."

They will be working alongside the Iranian Red Crescent, the country's equivalent of the Red Cross, to set up camps and other facilities.

At the moment, Mr Dyer does not know how long he will be away, reckoning it could be anything from three to six months.

"We will be recruiting and training local staff, and it depends on how long that will take, but the Red Crescent is very efficient and well organised."

Mr Dyer spent ten years in the Army specialising in logistics and has since worked for the US Army, the Sultan of Oman's land forces and various commercial concerns.

He is a registered engineer for disaster relief and earlier this year was in Mozambique in the aftermath of the floods there.

Mr Dyer and his wife have lived in North Malvern since August, 1999. They have a daughter who is a trained nurse and a son doing A'Levels at The Chase.

Oxfam and other agencies are calling for a ceasefire in the bombardment of Afghanistan to allow food supplies to be delivered into the beleaguered country.