ISLAMABAD
In an effort to draw attention to the plight of displaced people in southwest asia (SWA), the majority of whom are from Afghanistan, UNHCR representative for Pakistan Montserrat Feixas Vihe told IRIN on Thursday: “Afghanistan and the Afghan refugees need the attention and support of the world if there is to be a peaceful solution to the conflict.”
As part of the agency’s global appeal for 2001, in a press conference in Islamabad on Thursday, UNHCR spokesman Yusuf Hassan said that Afghans today constituted the overwhelming majority of refugees in SWA, making them the largest and longest-standing refugee group in the world.
Moreover, SWA hosted the biggest refugee population in the world. More than 2.6 million Afghans were refugees in Iran and Pakistan with many more undocumented in neighbouring countries. Thousands were internally displaced. In addition, thousands of resettled Afghan refugees were scattered across the globe.
“Afghans hold the unenviable record of being the single biggest and oldest refugee population in the world,” Hassan said.
Of the 22.3 million people worldwide requiring assistance, there were four million people “of concern” to UNHCR in the SWA region. This included 3.1 million refugees, 600,000 former refugees who had currently returned home and 300,000 internally displaced. In an effort to confront this challenge head on, UNHCR was currently seeking US $44.5 million to continue to provide protection and assistance to refugees in the SWA region. The assistance breakdown for the three countries that made up the region included US $8.5 for Afghanistan, US $17.6 million for Iran and US $18.3 for Pakistan.
Efforts for financial assistance from the international and donor community had initially been slow given what Hassan called “donor and asylum fatigue.” Further compounding the problem was the sheer magnitude and duration of the crisis.
“I don’t see any end in sight. This is a problem that has gone on for 20 years and could go on for another 20,” Vihe said.
In describing the UN’s response to the problem, Vihe told IRIN: “The assistance is being provided simultaneously - in Afghanistan for the purpose of making people’s movement unnecessary and in Pakistan to respond to the needs of those who have come into the country.”
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions