Chaman border refugees continue to stay on

Aid workers remain concerned over the plight of thousands of Afghan refugees who have chosen to remain along the Pakistani border at Chaman, despite the willingness of some 400 families to move to a temporary relocation site near the southern Afghan city of Kandahar. Many of the refugees have been in the waterless "no man's land" since February, receiving only limited assistance. "A minority have indicated to relocate to the Zarey Dasht, but we are concerned about the majority who are staying back," Vicky Hawkins, a project coordinator with the international medical relief organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), told IRIN on Friday from the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta. The families moving to the relocation camp at Zarey Dasht are doing so in terms of an agreement in May between the refugee elders and a task force comprising of UNHCR and the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Fleeing ethnic persecution, war and the worst drought in living memory, up to 25,000 ethnic Pashtuns have been stuck in the windswept plain in the Chaman "waiting area camp" for months. However, in spite of the summer heat, the health and sanitation conditions have improved in the camp compared to a deplorable situation two months ago, Hawkins said. UNHCR hopes that the relocation of some refugees to Kandahar might motivate the rest to return to their country. However, it maintains that any such movement has to be voluntary. "The decision is up to the people who are stranded at the border," UNHCR spokesman Jack Redden, told IRIN in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad. "We provide assistance to the people being repatriated but we are not promoting that," he added. Hawkins maintained that most of the people staying back were waiting for security assurances. "They are assessing the situation very carefully," she said. Meanwhile, UNHCR announced in Geneva on Friday that more than 1.3 million Afghan refugees had voluntarily returned to the country already. "More than 1,190,000 refugees have repatriated from Pakistan since the initiative started on March 1st. Some 98,000 people have returned from Iran since that operation began on April 9. Another 10,000 returnees have arrived from the Central Asian states. Together with our partners, we've also helped up to 200,000 internally displaced persons to return home, out of our target of 390,000," the agency said in a statement. The higher-than-expected repatriation figures had put a strain on the humanitarian community, said UNHCR, forcing it to focus aid on priorities like protection, travel assistance/returnee packages, shelter and water. This had meant "leaving previously anticipated expenditures in education and basic medical assistance to other agencies". A lack of money had also forced the agency to rely on other organisations for basic items which make up part of returnee packages.