Waiting area on Chaman border closing down

The waiting area for Afghan asylum seekers on Pakistan's southwestern border with Afghanistan will close at the end of July, the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) confirmed to IRIN on Monday. "It is unclear how many people don't want to move, but it is a tense area and we feel this is a good opportunity for those who want to return to go home," the UNHCR spokesman for Pakistan, Jack Redden, said. "The makeshift refugee camp was inside Pakistani territory, and the government did not want it to continue there," he added. The move follows the first meeting between the two governments and the UN refugee agency under the Tripartite Commission established earlier this year. The waiting area was a by-product of the mass movements of population triggered by the war against the Taliban. Pakistan, after initially trying to halt the influx of fresh refugees into a country already hosting more than three million from 20 years of previous conflict, let UNHCR open new refugee camps. In February 2002, Pakistan announced it was closing the border due to a continuing influx of Afghans. Those still in the waiting area were left stranded in that dry and dusty place, a situation which triggered a humanitarian crisis. Pakistan refused UNHCR permission to distribute tents, fearing the establishment of a permanent settlement on the border, but then, with temperatures dipping below freezing and an incessant wind lifting clouds of dust, the plight of the residents drew international concern. Meanwhile, the government allowed the distribution of water and food, and in June let the refugee agency give tents to the neediest families. While facilities in the waiting area at the Chaman border had improved with the supply of medical care, water and food, thousands of Afghans were living in dirty and unsafe conditions, after fleeing US air strikes on Afghanistan in October 2001. The remaining 19,626 residents of the zone will now be offered repatriation to Afghanistan or relocation to the existing Mohammad Kheyl refugee camp in Pakistan’s Balochistan Province. "A lot of them are from the north, who feel they can't go back yet due to security, and many others were nomads," Redden remarked. Aid supplies to the waiting area will cease after July when the unofficial camp is to be closed. "This was a situation that could not be allowed to continue," said Hasim Utkan, a representative of UNHCR Pakistan, in a statement issued by the agency on Monday. "We have found a solution that provides the asylum seekers with reasonable choices - we hope most [of them will] accept a package of assistance to return to Afghanistan, while those with continuing security concerns can move to an existing refugee camp inside Pakistan." Although some details remain to be decided, residents will first be offered a chance to move back to Afghanistan. The two most likely destinations are a camp for internally displaced Afghans located just across the border in the Afghan town of Spin Buldak, which is becoming a permanent settlement, or to the new Afghan settlement of Zarey Dasht, 30 km west of the southern Afghan city of Kandahar. A package of assistance for repatriation will be offered to the residents, who have dwindled from more than 26,000 a year ago because of previous relocations to Zarey Dasht. However, there has been much criticism about this particular site due to its location. "There has been concern from refugees, who say that there is no work for them at Zarey Dasht and they will have to travel to Kandahar," Redden said, adding that a decision was being made on the relocation package for those returning inside Afghanistan. For those Afghans who still do not want to return to their country there is the choice of moving to the Mohammad Kheyl refugee camp, which was one of a few settlements opened near the border to house Afghans fleeing the US-led war that toppled the Taliban. At the end of July, anyone remaining in the waiting area will neither get UNHCR assistance nor be classified as refugees, but will be treated according to normal Pakistani law. Those opting to go home will then be assisted for the following two weeks.