Voluntary repatriation gaining momentum

More than 3,000 Afghan refugees in Pakistan crossed the border into Afghanistan on the second working day of the voluntary repatriation drive launched by the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The ambitious regional effort, which began on Friday, 1 March, seeks to repatriate up to five million Afghans over the next five years. "We had 3,009 Afghans on Monday alone," the UNHCR emergency coordinator, Kwame Boafo, told IRIN from the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar. "This is a significant amount, which we could well surpass today," he said. Most of the largely ethnic Tajik group, comprising 564 families, were bound for the Afghan capital, Kabul, or the eastern province of Nangarhar. Arriving in 200 trucks and cars from as far away as the southern port city of Karachi, many of the returnees stayed over the weekend at the Takhtabaig voluntary repatriation centre (VRC), 16 km west of Peshawar, where they registered for assistance. Following formal registration, they left for the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad. The UN refugee agency provides each voluntary returnee with US $20, or US $100 for a family of five, to finance their travel home on arrival at the Afghan border town of Mohmandar, where UNHCR has established a cash-distribution point. Later, each returning family will receive 150 kg of wheat from the World Food Programme (WFP), as well as blankets, plastic sheetings, a hygiene kit, tools and other non-food related items from UNHCR distribution centres throughout the Central Asian country. Asked if he expected the numbers to increase, Boafo said: "Given the repatriation package being offered, we feel more people will take this opportunity to return back to their homeland." UNHCR hopes to repatriate up to 400,000 people this year from Pakistan, home to well over two million Afghan refugees. Monday's figures were a dramatic increase over Friday's, when only 196 Afghans registered for the programme. Following increased publicity about the campaign, interest has intensified immensely, with many people enquiring at UNHCR's sub-office in Peshawar. The first of seven VRCs to open in Pakistan, Takhtabaig will register returnees from Monday to Thursday each week. When fully operational, it will have the capacity to process 5,000 applicants a day. Since the establishment of the interim government in Kabul in December, more than 150,000 Afghans have spontaneously gone home unassisted, despite decades of civil war, drought and insecurity in some provinces. According to UNHCR, most returnees said they had returned after hearing reports that security had improved in the country. Evidence of an improving situation can be seen in the northeastern city of Jalalabad, where UNHCR's partners have begun implementing livelihood projects, disrupted in the aftermath of the US-led war against terrorism in Afghanistan. A concrete beam-making plant to support the agency's shelter programme for the poorest of the poor among the returnees began operating in February. Outside the Nangarhar provincial capital, villagers two weeks ago resumed construction of a mini-hydroelectric project in a community of 200 people, while along the Torkham (Tawr Kham)/ Jalalabad road, teams were clearing fields of land mines. With security in some parts of the country still precarious, those participating in the UNHCR-facilitated repatriation initiative are cautioned to avoid certain areas, including the eastern areas of Paktia, Khowst, Paktika and Tora Bora, the southern areas of Zabul, Uruzgan, Nimruz, and Helmand, the western province of Farah, and the northern area of Sholgara (Balkh). Meanwhile, UNHCR on Monday confirmed that in the last two months, more than 50,000 Afghans had arrived in Pakistan, including nomads and other people in need of assistance. The agency is relocating the newly arrived Afghans, as well as those who have been living in urban centres and are in destitute conditions, to recently established camps in Pakistan's border region. The United Nations on Thursday released its largest-ever humanitarian aid appeal, with agencies requesting US $1.8 billion for relief programmes in Afghanistan this year. Of that sum, UNHCR needs US $271 million to help up to 1.2 million Afghans return home, to finance rehabilitation projects throughout the country, and to assist millions of refugees still in its care.