UNHCR reports presence of 20,000 refugees

The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) confirmed the presence in Kazakhstan of about 20,000 refugees from various regions of the Russian Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Asia. Speaking on the occasion of World Refugee Day, the head of the UNHCR office for Kazakhstan said while the status of refugees in this vast Central Asian country of 16 million was positive, it was not without challenges. "One of the many problems facing refugees in this country is the lack of job opportunities, making them more dependent on international aid and a burden on Kazakhstan," Abdul Karim Ghoul told IRIN from the Kazakh commercial capital, Almaty. "Many of the refugees are good professionals who could contribute significantly to the economic wealth of the country if given the necessary job opportunity." He noted that such refugees could make considerable contributions to both the country's cultural and economic development as many of them were trained specialists, of whom there was a shortage in the republic. In hosting the refugees, the Kazakh government abides by its international obligations as party to the 1951 convention and the 1967 protocol governing refugee status. But while the government tolerates refugees staying in the country, the lack of a national refugee law for the country has proved to be problematic. "Although it has been adopted by the two chambers of parliament, it was called off from parliament in April 2001," Ghoul said. "We don't know why this draft law has not been adopted thus far." Indeed, the lack of identity papers and the inadequacy of Kazakh legislation constitutes the greatest problem. The Kazakh immigration police and other government agencies are forced to work under the Kazakh law on migration, in which only one article relates to refugees by defining their identity. "The rights of refugees are unfortunately often being violated by the police," Ghoul said. He, noted, however, that such violations were not the act or expression of the state, but rather of police officials, given their low awareness of refugees and of the country's obligations under international refugee law. The refugees comprise 11,200 from Chechnya, followed by 4,000 from Tajikistan, 2,350 from Afghanistan, 1,000 from Palestine, and the rest from other nationalities, including Uighurs - an ethnic minority group from China. As most of the 20,000 have been recognised as refugees by UNHCR in Kazakhstan, they enjoy medical services provided by the refugee agency, and children are admitted to local schools. In this context, however, only 1,300 of the refugees have had their status as such officially determined by the government, and of these only 970 have been granted official refugee certification by the state. Clarifying the problem, Ghoul said that in Kazakhstan there were categories of refugees that by definition were not considered as such by the government - i.e. foreign nationals of CIS countries. These included Chechens and Tajiks, who in fact constituted the majority of the refugees in the country. "This is partly related to the delicate geopolitical situation in the country," he explained. Indeed, given the longstanding stereotyping of Chechens as terrorists, and the failure of the government to acknowledge them as bona fide refugees, protection for this particular group - as well as for the Uighurs - presents a major challenge. Regarding repatriation from the country, Ghoul said that as peace and stability return to neighbouring Tajikistan, between 1,300 to 1,500 Tajiks had over the past year and a half gone home, noting, however, there had been no recorded return of Afghans thus far.