UNHCR ends assistance to "new" refugee camps

The office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has completed processing the last of some 82,000 Afghan refugees wishing to repatriate from "new" camps in Pakistan located near the Afghan border, where the agency has ended its assistance, the refuge agency announced on Monday. The UN agency and the government of Pakistan had announced in July that all assistance in the 15 "new" camps housing around 190,000 Afghans would end on 1 September due to increasing security concerns because of unrest in neighbouring areas of Afghanistan. UNHCR had completed processing refugees from nine "new" camps in North West Frontier Province (NWFP) on 31 August but announced a five-day extension for registering those leaving six similar camps in Balochistan province because of delays in the programme. "More than 39,000 out of 65,000 refugees listed in 'new' camps in NWFP [have been processed] while 43,000 from a total of 127,000 Afghans have repatriated from Balochistan, availing [themselves of] the special assistance package of the UNHCR," Jack Redden, a UNHCR spokesman, told IRIN in the capital, Islamabad. In addition to receiving a three-month food supply on arrival in Afghanistan, families repatriating from these camps will receive non-food benefits including a tent and other items. "The [new] camps were mainly located in remote areas where it was difficult and expensive to provide assistance," Redden said. The UNHCR has ceased all services in the "new" camps, including food distribution, this having been discontinued in "old" camps in 1995. However, support in the form of medical care, education, water and sanitation will continue in nearly 200 "old" camps across Pakistan which hold about a million residents, other than those have taken the option to relocate from the "new" ones. "We are satisfied with the number who took this package, but remember, it's a voluntary programme and it's up to the refugees themselves as to whether or not they want to go back and avail [themselves of] this package," Redden said. The UNHCR has assisted nearly 2.25 million Afghans to return to their homeland since the voluntary repatriation programme started in March 2002, with 340,000 returning so far this year. The agency expects about 400,000 to 500,000 Afghan refugees to return from Pakistan this year. The voluntary repatriation of Afghan refugees is governed by a tripartite accord between the UNHCR and the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan that runs until March 2006.