3,000 Afghan families repatriated in 3 months: UNHCR

PESHAWAR: An official of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Tuesday said that about 3,000 Afghan families had been repatriated to homeland in the last three months.
He said 41 percent of them had returned home due to fear of being arrested or deported.Briefing journalists, Head of UNHCR sub-office in Peshawar Jacques Franquin said that in the first three months of current year, a total of 10,777 individuals or 3,000 families had returned to Afghanistan under the voluntary repatriation programme of the UNHCR.
“Of these repatriated families, 83 percent had come from host communities while 17 percent from refugee villages,” revealed the data provided to the journalists.According to the UNHCR information about 1.5 million Afghan refugees were still living in Pakistan as legal refugees whose official status (Proof of Registration) cards would expire by the end of the current year.
“The UNHCR is looking for durable solution regarding the voluntary repatriation of Afghan refugees to their motherland,” said the UNHCR chief when asked about the possible extension of PoR cards of the registered Afghan refugees in Pakistan.
He said that representatives of Pakistan, Afghanistan and UNHCR during a tripartite meeting held in Islamabad had reaffirmed their commitment to end the protracted stay of the Afghan refugees with dignity.
“We had agreed to intensify efforts for creating an environment for voluntary return and sustainable reintegration of returnees in Afghanistan,” he added.
In his briefing another official of UNHCR, Bashir Ahmad, confirmed that 41 percent of repatriated families during the current year had gone to Afghanistan due to the fear of arrest or deportation as the situation for Afghan nationals and refugees was not suitable after terrorist attack on Army Public School and College in Peshawar on December 16, last year.
“Majority of the Afghan families living in Azad Jammu and Kashmir and the Punjab province informed us that they had been compelled by local administration, security personnel and land owners on various pretexts to leave for Afghanistan,” he said.
He added the district administration in Haripur district had restricted the Afghan nationals to camps. He said the security personnel at Kohat Tunnel were not allowing the Afghan refugees to enter the Peshawar valley.
“The restriction has been lifted and now the registered Afghan refugees can travel out of Kohat and other southern districts of the province,” he added.
The official said that about 700 registered Afghan refugees were arrested after the terrorist attack on APS but they were not deported under Foreigners Act as they possessed the PoR cards.
He said that about 9,65,301 registered Afghan refugees were living in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata at the moment of whom 5,12,565 individuals were settled in host communities.He said due to lack of proper legislation the Afghan refugees had been treated on ad hoc basis in Pakistan where they had taken refuge since 1980.
About the internally displaced persons (IDPs) from tribal areas, the UNHCR official said that 2,76,082 of total registered 2,84,243 displaced families were living in host families. He said only three percent lived at the IDPs camps.
The data collected by UNHCR showed that some 6,307 families had put up in the Jalozai Camp in Nowshera, 700 families in New Durrani IDPs Camp and about 1,154 families in Togh Serai Camp.Similarly, Bannu, Peshawar and Dera Ismail Khan are the main cities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where the displaced families from tribal areas live with the host communities.