Insecurity threatening return programme, says UNHCR

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has said that deteriorating security in parts of Afghanistan is hampering its return programmes for refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs). "Repatriation has slowed down significantly since last year. But last year there was a great deal of exuberance. This year people are looking at the economic and security situation, " a UNHCR spokesman, Peter Kessler, told IRIN from the Jordanian capital, Amman. "People need to also have jobs, and the gunmen might be doing something different if they were involved in other activities." The UN High Commissioner himself voiced his concerns at the agency's headquarters on Thursday. "UNHCR and its partners have worked hard to help more than two million people return home over the past year, but the sustainability of those and future returns is now being jeopardised by insecurity in parts of Afghanistan," UN High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers said in a statement issued from Geneva on Thursday. "It is absolutely crucial that Afghan authorities and the international community take measures to strengthen security in the country, particularly in rural areas," he stressed.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers has called for greater security in the country

UNHCR is calling for concrete action to be taken to improve security particularly in southern Afghanistan, following the murder of the international aid worker, Ricardo Mungia of the International Committee of the Red Cross. This has resulted in more than 10 international NGOs withdrawing staff from the southern province of Kandahar, on a temporary basis. "We've temporarily closed our Spin Buldak field unit in the south of the country," Kessler said. Operations at the Chaman border with Pakistan have also been restricted or stopped. The agency has warned that insecurity could trigger a vicious cycle of reduced humanitarian access, less development aid, fewer returns and further instability - all in an area that is already suffering the effects of half a decade of drought. Large areas of southeastern Afghanistan - including the whole of Oruzgan and Zabol provinces - remain off-limits to aid agency staff because of the dangers. "Clearly, the fact that some areas can only be accessed using armed escorts makes it difficult for many humanitarian agencies to operate when they normally shun that kind of armed protection," Kessler said. Security concerns in eastern Afghanistan have delayed the establishment of a new iris recognition (device which identifies people through the iris in their eyes on photographs taken for repatriation forms) centre in Khowst to screen returnees to avert repeated assistance claims. In Nangarhar, UN activities have been on hold since January. The freeze was imposed following the killing of two guards who were escorting a UNHCR team. UN activities have also been curtailed in the northwest, following a new outbreak of inter-factional fighting near Meymaneh, west of Mazar-e Sharif. There are about 350,000 IDPs in southern Afghanistan, most of them in six settlements in Kandahar and Helmand provinces. People are still arriving in these settlements after fleeing harassment and insecurity in the northwest - from Faryab, Jawzjan and Badghis provinces.