Repatriation operation to continue from Pakistan - UNHCR

The office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) will continue operating its voluntary repatriation assistance programme for Afghan refugees from Pakistan, as the agency announced a suspension of operations from Iran via Herat following the attack on the UN offices in the western Afghan city of Herat on Sunday. "The UNHCR operation is continuing from Pakistan. There is no change in the operation here. Obviously the situation though is in the state of flux at the moment and our main concern is to ensure that everybody is safe in Herat," Jack Redden, a spokesman for UNHCR Pakistan, told IRIN in the capital, Islamabad, on Monday. The buildings of the UNHCR and the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) were attacked by demonstrators protesting against the sacking by Afghan President Hamid Karzai of Ismael Khan, the governor of the western Afghan province of Herat. "The trouble is in the west, while mostly the people [Afghan refugees] are moving to eastern parts of Afghanistan from Pakistan," Redden said. Meanwhile, the UNHCR announced on Monday that it will end its assistance on 15 September to four "new" refugee camps in Balochistan located in the Chaman area of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan. The refuge agency had stopped all its activities in the nine "new" camps in North West Frontier Province (NWFP) on 31 August and two similar camps in Balochistan province on 5 September, but announced an extension for four camps offering the residents relocation to another camp in Balochistan at Mohammed Kheil. According to the UN refugee agency, no refugee in the four camps on the border at Chaman had accepted the offer to relocate to an alternative camp. Many Afghans in the Chaman camps said that, rather than relocate to a camp where basic services are available, they would prefer to stay without the UNHCR assistance near the border town where it is easy to find daily labouring jobs, the UNHCR press statement said. The UNHCR had announced earlier this year that the agency would end all assistance to "new" camps, established near the Pakistan-Afghan border to shelter those fleeing the conflict of late 2001 in Afghanistan. Some 82,000 out of a total of 190,000 Afghans availed themselves of the UNHCR special package for repatriation from "new" camps. However, the agency will continue to provide water, sanitation, education and medical services in nearly 200 "old" camps throughout Pakistan. The UNHCR statement said that it was difficult and expensive to provide services to the Chaman camps, which were located on a barren strip along the border with Afghanistan where water had to be supplied by tanker trucks. There was also increasing concern about security because of the long porous border, the statement said. The UNHCR's regular repatriation assistance package is available until March 2006 to all Afghans wishing to return from Pakistan. The UN refugee agency has assisted some 2.25 million Afghans repatriating to their homeland, including some 350,000 so far this year.