Afghan economic improvement lures back refugees

KARACHI – More Afghan refugees returned to their homeland from Pakistan this year than last year, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said.

Returning refugees cited security and economic improvement in Afghanistan and said July’s flood in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was a contributing factor.

Some 1.6m registered Afghans are living in Pakistan; 45% reside in refugee camps, with the rest scattered among host communities. Last year Pakistan and UNHCR signed an agreement to extend the stay of Afghan refugees until the end of 2010.

The UNHCR in Pakistan concluded its ninth session of the facilitated return program for the Afghan refugees on October 31, and the return process will take a winter recess, said Duniya Aslam Khan, a UNHCR spokeswoman. She said 109,383 Afghans returned home this year through the programme. In 2009, 51,290 refugees returned, she said.

About 3.7m refugees have returned to Afghanistan in the past nine years.

“Repatriation is one of our preferred solutions in any post-conflict situation,” said Manesha Kedebe, UNHCR representative in Pakistan. “These returns prove that Afghans are eager to go back home if better alternatives are provided.”

Repatriation programme includes incentives

“UNHCR, through their two repatriation centres in Quetta and Peshawar, is giving an assistance and integration package, including a grant of US $100,” Khan said, adding that the incentive has boosted the number of voluntary repatriations.

Many Afghan refugees, especially from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, returned to their homes, after record flooding. Water inundated 78 refugee camps across the province, erasing more than 12,500 homes and leaving 85,500 refugees homeless, said Haji Afzal, a refugee leader in Jalozai camp in Nowshera District.

“Our houses were totally destroyed by the floods and the government was not able to help us immediately,” said Khan Muhammad, an Afghan refugee living in Jalozai camp, “so we planned to go back to Afghanistan, where at least some of our housing problems would be solved.”

The economy in Afghanistan has improved over the past four years, he said, giving refugees another motive to return.

Even Pakistanis are finding reason to live in Afghanistan now.

“Due to the prevailing insurgency in Pakistan’s tribal areas and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, thousands of Pashtuns are coming to Afghanistan to find jobs,” a refugee from Nangarhar Province told Central Asia Online. Dozens of displaced families from the tribal areas of Pakistan live in Afghanistan, he said.

Some say refugee returns are not all voluntary

Others, though, complain the Afghan refugee returns aren’t all voluntary.

The government has cracked down on refugees because of ongoing terrorism in Pakistan and authorities have deported some Afghan refugees, said Haji Sohrab, the official representative of Afghan refugees appointed by the Afghan consulate in Karachi.

“Many Afghan refugees who don’t have Proof of Registration, a document given to these refugees jointly by the government of Pakistan and UNHRC, face serious action by the police and law enforcement agencies,” Sohrab told Central Asia Online.

The situation has changed in the past four years, Azam Khan, 65, an Afghan refugee who fled to Pakistan after the 1979 Soviet invasion, said. “Now Afghan refugees live in an atmosphere of fear and insecurity, and local industries are not hiring them,” he added.

“Pakistan has hosted Afghan refugees for decades and will not force repatriation,” said Najamuddin Khan, federal Minister for States and Frontier Regions.

“The government is trying its best to look after them with collaboration of UNHCR and the donor agencies. We have suggested US $5,000 for each Afghan family on their return to Afghanistan for shelter and livelihood there,” N. Khan said, adding that all returns would be voluntary and the government wanted to treat departing Afghans respectfully.

Almost 70% of the returnees come from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, with the rest from Balochistan, Sindh and Punjab, according to UNHCR’s website.

Millions of Afghans fled to Pakistan in the 1980s after the Soviet invasion and during Taliban rule in the late 1990s.