Afghan registration quickens ahead of deadline

As the campaign to register those Afghans seeking temporary legal status in Pakistan draws to a close on 31 December, participation is gaining momentum particularly in the country’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP), to secure official identification cards validating their stay in exile.

To date, more than 836,000 Afghan refugees have registered with Pakistani authorities, including over half a million living in NWFP, according to the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

“The pace [of Afghan registration] has increased exponentially, especially in NWFP where more than 20,000 people are getting registered daily through 19 static registration centres and mobile vans in the province,” said Indrika Ratwatte, UNHCR’s assistant representative in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, on Wednesday.

The US $6 million registration exercise is a follow-up to a comprehensive Afghan census conducted in the country in February and March 2005, which found more than 3 million Afghan refugees were still living in the country. Only Afghans enumerated in last year’s census are eligible for the registration.

A provincial breakdown of Afghan registration so far suggests that over 502,000 come from NWFP, another 150,000 from Balochistan, 113,000 from Punjab, 64,000 from Sindh and some 6,000 from Pakistani-administered Kashmir.

The ongoing registration campaign, which began on 15 October, aims to provide millions of Afghan exiles with temporary legal status through a Proof of Registration (PoR) card, which recognises the bearer as an Afghan citizen living temporarily in Pakistan.

But with just over two weeks left, UNHCR officials have urged those Afghans eligible to come forward for registration.

“This is their last chance to get PoR cards, which will also entitle them to return and reintegration assistance next year,” Ratwatte said.

Meanwhile, the UN refugee agency is negotiating with Islamabad and Kabul on new return arrangements beyond 2006, possibly moving from individual travel assistance to area-based reintegration assistance.

To this, a tripartite meeting of all three parties is scheduled for the second half of January 2007, to further discuss the modalities of a new voluntary Afghan repatriation programme due to start in March 2007.

More than 2.8 million Afghan refugees have returned to their homeland from Pakistan since 2002 under a UNHCR-assisted voluntary repatriation programme that ended on 14 October after five years.

Pakistan's National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) is conducting the exercise, using fingerprint biometrics and photos to record information through stationary and mobile registration centres across the country with the support of the government's Commissionerate for Afghan Refugees (CAR) and UNHCR.