IOM delays IDP returns due to fighting

The International Organisation for Migration [IOM] has delayed the return of internally displaced persons [IDPs] to the northern Afghan province of Faryab due to security concerns. "We are holding back for the time being as all missions to the area have been suspended," the head of the office for IOM operations in the north, Ghotai Ghazialam, told IRIN from the city of Mazar-e Sharif. Some 774 IDPs registered with IOM in the northern Jowzjan Province to return to Faryab, but will remain there, because fighting between rival factions of the Jonbesh-e Melli-ye Eslami (National Islamic Movement) and Jamiat-e Islami (Islamic Society) erupted in Meymaneh, the provincial capital of Faryab. Movement was restricted for aid workers as of 10 April, due to the fighting, reported to have started on 8 March, according to IOM. "Although the UNAMA [United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan] has intervened to resolve the problem, our fear is that when they [UNAMA] leave, the factions will go back to fighting," Ghazialam said. There are about 600,000 IDPs in Afghanistan, of whom some 350,000 are in the south, to which many ethnic Pashtuns fled due to persecution after the fall of the Taliban, who were themselves predominantly Pashtun. "Pashtuns are not going back to their areas of origin just yet as they are concerned over their security," she said. To help resolve the security concerns of those returning, a return commission was established in the north earlier this year in collaboration with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. The members of the commission are Gen Abdul Rashid Dostum of the Jonbesh-e Melli-ye Eslami, Gen Ustad Ata Mohammad of the Jamiat-e Islami, and Sardar Saidi, the local head of the Hezb-e-Wahdat (Unity Party). "The commission has identified problems, and now has to identify the process of improvement," a UNHCR spokeswoman, Maki Shinohara, told IRIN from the Afghan capital, Kabul. Although such incidents and the recent murder of an International Committee of the Red Cross delegate in southern Afghanistan have slowed down IOM programming in some regions, overall activities are picking up with the arrival of spring. IOM is working with IDPs in northern, central and western Afghanistan.