Preparation for Afghan refugee census

The Pakistani government has planned a countrywide census of the Afghans living in the country, with the support of the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The purpose is to ascertain the exact number of Afghans living in Pakistan since 1979. "We have almost done the preparatory work like mapping of Afghan hosting areas, and next month - December - is tentatively for the census," Ghulam Dastageer, head of Pakistan's Commissionerate for Afghan Refugees (CAR), told IRIN in the capital, Islamabad, on Wednesday. The country has been hosting over one million Afghan refugees - still the largest refugee population in the world - for more than two decades. UNHCR has so far assisted 2.28 million Afghans to return home, with 375,000 refugees this year. The population and census organisation of the country is preparing to conduct the census and registration of Afghans along with the mapping of areas of Afghan settlements. "The exercise involves different phases - preparatory work has almost been done, and next step is counting, filling up forms, questionnaires and everything else," Dastageer said, adding: "There has been some delays but now we are on it [the census], and we intend to do it next month." "The census will cover all Afghans here since 1979. It would be mandatory for Afghans and would count the number and composition of the population as well," Jack Redden, a UNHCR spokesman in Islamabad, told IRIN. The UN refugee agency is discussing the details of the survey procedure with the government, the spokesman said. UNHCR is operating a voluntary repatriation assistance programme for Afghan refugees living in Iran and Pakistan that runs till March 2006.