Government may accept "vulnerable" Afghan refugees

The Pakistani government has in principle agreed to accept more "vulnerable" Afghan refugees as a result of the meeting between UN High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers and Pakistan's President General Pervez Musharraf on Tuesday, a UNHCR official told IRIN on Wednesday. "UNHCR is ready to receive 150,000 refugees and is making arrangements to receive up to 300,000 refugees in Pakistan alone," the UNHCR spokesman in Islamabad, Peter Kessler, said. According to the UN, some 1.5 million refugees could try to enter Pakistan in a worst-case scenario. About 80,000 Afghans have crossed over since 11 September. UNHCR is developing refugee camps in southwestern and northwestern Pakistan, of which 15 sites are due to become operational soon. More than 1,300 people are awaiting their fate in the Killi Faizo "staging post", which is a temporary refugee camp near Chaman on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. They are expected to be moved to a more suitable site, the UN said. "I spoke rather tough with the president, because I understand from his perspective that he cannot accept the flood of Afghans coming in," Lubbers told reporters following his meeting with Musharraf. Lubbers added that he had asked the Pakistani leader to take up his responsibility not only for the people of his country but also for those on the other side of the border when they had no alternative to flight. "If we go for refugee camps in the Taliban-dominated area, which is in the process of militarisation, we will be very cautious, because we cannot go, build camps and assist them when they are used for conscription or for a hiding place for those militants who need to rest before going back to the front," Lubbers added. Commenting on Lubbers visit, Dr Rasul Bakhsh Rais, the director of the area study centre at Quaid-I-Azam University in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, told IRIN that Pakistan’s refugee policy had not changed. "The policy still focuses on providing aid to Afghan refugees close to the Pakistan border, but inside Afghanistan," he said. Asked about the main issue of disagreement between Pakistan and UNHCR, Rais said: "There is a problem over defining ‘refugees’, and both sides only agree to disagree over defining who can be a refugee and who cannot." Pakistan is trying to keep refugees close to their homes by emphasising the establishment of camps inside Afghanistan, and not allowing people to permanently settle inside Pakistan, Rais said. This, he pointed out, was not a 1980s situation when refugees were threatened and attacked by the Soviets. "Once we allow people to enter Pakistan, they stay, and this obviously creates problems," he added. "There is a clear credibility gap between UN agencies and the Pakistani government, as Pakistan was left alone in the past to deal with the refugees," Rais said, clarifying why Pakistan was reluctant to accept new refugees. One solution to the problem was the construction of refugee camps inside Afghanistan. "Camps should be established near Jalalabad, Herat and Kandahar in the safe areas close to international borders [but] inside Afghanistan," he said. Kessler, however, stressed that the refugee agency could not provide support to the people inside their own country, due to the security situation.