UNHCR head travels to region

As part of a week-long mission to the region, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Ruud Lubbers will travel to the Iranian capital Tehran on Saturday, highlighting UNHCR's ongoing commitment to assist hundreds of thousands of Afghans return to their homeland. With stopovers in Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan, his visit coincides with a massive effort to repatriate up to 800,000 Afghans back to their country this year. "UNHCR together with the Iranian and Pakistani governments and the interim authority has started what could be the largest voluntary repatriation operation ever," UNHCR spokesman, Peter Kessler told IRIN from the Swiss city of Geneva on Thursday. "This visit will enable the High Commissioner to review first hand all these operations with the respective governments, senior UN officials, and his staff," he explained. During his visit to the region, his third since taking office in January 2001, Lubbers is scheduled to meet senior members of the Iranian government, including Iranian President, Mohammad Khatami, before traveling to the eastern city of Mashad on Sunday to witness Afghans returning home. Following visits to the western Afghan city of Herat, Lubbers will then travel to the Afghan capital Kabul where he is expected to meet interim authority head, Hamid Karzai, as well as Special Representative of the UN Secretary General, Lakhdar Brahimi, before proceeding to Pakistan for similar meetings and inspections. In addition to UNHCR assisted rehabilitation operations inside Afghanistan, Lubber's visit is expected to highlight the two separate repatriation programmes currently underway in Pakistan and Iran - the two largest host countries to Afghan refugees - currently well over four million together. Refugees participating in the programmes receive a small monetary grant, as well as an assistance package of food and non-food related items inside Afghanistan. According to UNHCR on Thursday, some 230,000 Afghans have been repatriated from Pakistan since the programme began on 1 March. The refugee agency currently operates three voluntary repatriation centres (VRCs) where Afghans can register for the programme, including two in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and one in the southwest province of Baluchistan. Additional support is provided by mobile registration teams in the southern port city of Karachi. While initial plans from Pakistan called for the repatriation of up to 400,000, that figure was now expected to be scaled up due to increased demand. Operations, however, have not been without problems. In addition to serious funding concerns to sustain the campaign, earlier this week operations at the Takhtabaig VRC, 16 km west of the provincial capital Peshawar in NWFP, were temporarily suspended after opium farmers held violent protests over government plans to destroy their poppy fields along the main road from the Torkham border crossing to the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad. The tension resulted in some 18,000 Afghans delaying their return after registering at Takhtabaig, and hindered operations at UNHCR's encashment centre at Mohmandar where returnees from Pakistan receive their cash grants. But after a suspension of just a few hours, UNHCR officials in Pakistan maintained operations were back to normal. "As of Tuesday we resumed operations and have now taken care of the back log," Melita Sunjic, UNHCR spokeswoman in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad told IRIN. "It's business as usual," she said. Meanwhile, in the first two days of the newest repatriation operation in Iran, 1,038 Afghans left for their homeland - typical of the slow start seen in early March from neighbouring Pakistan. The Afghans headed home via Afghanistan's Islam Qala crossing point where they were welcomed by officials overseeing the return operation and boarded trucks organised by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) for the onward journey to their home provinces. Reports of skirmishes on Tuesday in the western Afghan city of Zaranj, opposite the Iranian border town of Milak, have resulted in UNHCR's partner in Iran, the Bureau for Aliens and Foreign Immigration Affairs (BAFIA) delaying plans to help Afghans repatriate directly to the southwest Afghan province of Nimrouz. Afghans are temporarily being bussed northwards to the northern Iranian border crossing at Dogharun where they cross instead. "We will review the security situation there next week before proceeding further," UNHCR information officer, Mohammad Nouri told IRIN from Tehran on Thursday. While the number of Afghans repatriating back to their country appears encouraging, security inside the country remains a major concern and an issue that must be seriously addressed during Lubbers' meetings in all three countries. Describing the process as a self-organised voluntary repatriation operation, Kessler said they advised Afghan refugees on areas that were deemed unsafe or facing a precarious security situation for any number of reasons. "Tuesday, for example, we advised people to hold-off returning through the Khyber pass, and many did. However, our staff were on duty Mohmander, Afghanistan, and continued providing assistance to returnees," he explained.