UNHCR says major concern of refugees is livelihoods not security

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees on Wednesday said that the major concerns of refugees living in both Iran and Pakistan are jobs and employment, not security. “Now, for the sustainability of return to be possible, our work with refugees still staying in Pakistan and Iran, has shown us very clearly that the major concern is not paradoxically security, but it is livelihoods,” Antonio Guterres, told reporters at a press conference at the end of a two-day mission to Afghanistan, in the capital Kabul, adding the major concerns of refugees were related to the issue of employment, education, and health care. A high proportion of the over 3.5 million Afghans, who have returned home from Pakistan and Iran since the collapse of the Taliban regime in late 2001, are suffering from lack of shelter and unemployment. “Our main message is that …there should be the creation of conditions for the full integration of returnees in the development process of Afghanistan," Guterres explained. Asked for his view of the future of returns, Guterres said “Afghans will continue to return to their homeland in large numbers. But there will be those who will take longer to make that decision. Those Afghans who do not return in the short-term should continue to have the right to a decent life in their countries of asylum." Some 500,000 Afghans have returned home this year, bringing the total number of returns since UNHCR began its repatriation programme in 2002 to nearly three million, according to the refugee agency. "I encourage all three governments, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan, to play a constructive role in addressing this [refugee] issue, together with the UN refugee agency," Guterres said.