IRIN Special Report on Refugee Repatriation

More than a decade after the Soviet military withdrawal from Afghanistan, millions of Afghans are still in camps and villages in Pakistan and Iran, waiting to go home. Every day, a few score pack up their belongings, accumulated in some instances over 20 years, and clamber into trucks and pick-ups for the long journey home. Most of them are well aware of the extreme hardships they are likely to face when they get there. But they still opt to return, even if their houses have been destroyed, they have no access to heath facilities, schools or water, and may have little chance of survival amid conditions of devastating drought and continuing war. World’s largest refugee group According to official figures, used as a rough guideline by UNHCR, 1.2 million refugees remain in Pakistan and 1.4 million in Iran. According to both governments, the figures are much higher. Pakistan cites a figure of at least 1.7 million, while Iran puts the number at more than two million. Privately, most aid officials agree that these figures are probably nearer the mark. Whichever figures one uses, officials say Afghans make up the largest refugee group in the world, and they have remained so for the last 19 years. But after playing host to these huge numbers for so many years, both the Iranian and Pakistani governments now say that the time has come for the refugees to go home. With the Taliban movement now in control of more than 90 percent of Afghanistan, the two governments argue that there is relative stability and thus no need for the refugees to remain in their countries. The Taliban has said it also favours repatriation and that it wants to be included in new tripartite agreements with Iran, Pakistan and UNHCR to facilitate the refugees’ return. In June 1997, the Taliban issued a declaration of amnesty pledging that no returnee would be subjected to harassment, discrimination or persecution for having left the country on ethnic or religious grounds. It also exempted returnees from military service for one year after their return. UNHCR, however, has said it will only facilitate - and not promote - voluntary repatriations. To this end, it has worked out separate assistance schemes for the refugees in Iran and Pakistan. Since 1990 it has helped some 2.14 million people return to Afghanistan from Pakistan and some 600,000 from Iran. The peak period was 1992-3 when UNHCR helped more than 1.74 million people return home - only for many of them to be displaced yet again by renewed fighting. The Taliban onslaught on Kabul and the east of the country in 1994-6 caused a fresh wave of refugees into Pakistan, while its advance north into Mazar-i-Sharif two years later brought a new influx into Iran. Porous borders This year, UNHCR has envisaged assisting about 100,000 returnees from both countries, agency officials told IRIN. But because of drought, seasonal migration, fighting and the porous nature of the border, people come and go. A UNHCR post on the border monitors returnees who choose to come forward and identify themselves. Katharina Lumpp, Protection Officer for UNHCR Afghanistan, told IRIN: “We have often felt that we cannot support the return of pressured people to areas of conflict or drought. The Taliban themselves are urging a slowing down of repatriation to drought areas.” Repatriation from Iran In Iran, only those Afghans who arrived before 1992 have official refugee status, while those who arrived since are considered illegal by the Iranian authorities. Until 1998, UNHCR only had a mandate to assist documented refugees - those with official status. The others were liable to forcible repatriation which, UNHCR sources said, the Iranians have been carrying out on a relatively large scale over the past few years. In 1999, for instance, UNHCR figures show that there were 107,000 forcible repatriations from Iran, as against only 20,000 voluntary repatriations facilitated by the agency. With a view to curtailing forcible repatriations, UNHCR signed in February 2000 a joint programme with the Iranian government on the voluntary repatriation of Afghan refugees. The programme, which has been effective since April, has three main components: To provide assistance for any Afghan, irrespective of legal status, wishing to return home; to ensure Iranian government protection for those unable to return because of conflict, ethnic discrimination or other reasons; and an information campaign to make Afghans in Iran aware of the programme. Refugees wishing to return can now go to any one of three repatriation centres in Iran where UNHCR officials screen them to check that they are genuine voluntary returnees, who have not been pressured into returning and to ascertain the suitability of the projected area of return. The agency also provides them with plastic sheeting and 50 percent of a cash allowance of US $40 per person, before they board trucks provided by the International Office of Migration (IOM). They receive the remainder of the cash and 50 kg of wheat per person on arrival in Herat in western Afghanistan. UNHCR officials said the scheme had enabled more than 64,000 refugees to return since April in three convoys a week. But they said the programme is threatened by a drastic shortage of funding and that it would have to be stopped after October. At the beginning of August, UNHCR said it was forced to reduce the cash allowance from US $40 to US $20. Lumpp told IRIN that UNHCR was now having to help people with transport to their further destinations - thus placing an even heavier financial burden on the agency - in order to avoid displacement in Herat. Refugees had earlier been expected to contribute towards the cost of transport, but since the cut in the cash grant, this charge was now being waived, she said. At the same time, forced repatriations have been continuing, albeit on a much smaller scale. In the week up to 25 July, UNHCR reported that 92 Afghans, most of them single males, were forcibly repatriated through Islam-Qala, Iran’s main crossing point into Afghanistan. Repatriation from Pakistan Among the Afghan refugees in Pakistan, UNHCR facilitates two methods of repatriation. The first, which is used by the vast majority of returnees, is individual repatriation. Under this system, any family or individual deciding to go back to Afghanistan from North West Frontier Province (NWFP), pack up their belongings, arrange transport and proceed to one of three verification centres. “Identification is a huge problem,” UNHCR repatriation officer Iris Blom told IRIN. “Most have no papers and our staff are dealing with up to a thousand people a day.” She said UNHCR officials in Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan had reported seeing the same people turn up time and again. “But this does not mean that they are not genuine returnees,” she said. “You can be forced from your home more than once in your life. Our aim is to establish a genuine intent to settle back in Afghanistan.” After receiving UNHCR clearance, the families make their own way to the border. Most pass through Torkham, monitored by a UNHCR checkpoint. Inside Afghanistan they head for one of five encashment centres, in Jalalabad, Khost, Kandahar, Lashkhar Gah and Herat, where their papers are checked and they receive a cash grant of 5,000 Pakistan rupees (approximately US $100) per family, plastic sheeting and 300 kg of WFP wheat. The second scheme is group repatriation, whereby a group of families decide to return together. The system was introduced by UNHCR in 1997 as a means of providing more long-term assistance to returnees. The returnees UNHCR carries out extensive monitoring of returnees at their places of origin and return in Afghanistan. It said the aim was to support the realisation of human rights, identify their needs, and assess what counselling future returnees might require. In 1999, UNHCR staff carried out 3,270 interviews with heads of returnee households - covering a total of 18,798 returnees. Of these, 77 percent had returned from Pakistan and 23 percent from Iran. UNHCR said 54 percent had succeeded in recovering their land and houses; 21 percent found their houses destroyed, while 22 percent had been unable to recover their property - in most cases because of their continuing inability to reach their place of origin. Thirty-seven percent of family heads worked as farmers or herders, 24 percent as labourers, 11 percent in the private sector, two percent as civil servants and one percent as teachers. Twenty-seven percent had no source of income through their own work. What the interviews could not show was how many stayed in Afghanistan and how many became refugees once again, humanitarian officials said. For many, especially the younger generation with no memories of life in Afghanistan before the war, life in their homeland was found to be much harsher then they might have expected. And while conditions in the refugee camps - which are more like established villages - around Peshawar, are basic, there is access to water, health facilities, child care, education, electricity and employment, none of which can be taken for granted in Afghanistan. And aid officials fear that even for the stalwart returnees who have remained so far, the continuing drought and resumption of fighting could make life unsustainable. However, there are extensive efforts by aid agencies to assist the process of reintegration. While UNHCR says it can only do so much, and therefore focuses on basic needs, such as shelter and access to drinking water, many other agencies are working in other areas, such as health, education, agricultural rehabilitation and income generation. Some 17 Afghan and foreign NGOs are engaged in reintegration projects, all of which make the likelihood of returnees remaining in their places of origin far greater.