UN and government sign screening agreement

The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Pakistani government have signed a landmark agreement to establish a joint process for screening Afghan refugees living in the country’s North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), a UNHCR spokesman confirmed on Thursday. “This is a major breakthrough. Those who are screened will have the legal right to stay, giving them rights that no Afghan [in Pakistan] has at the moment,” Yusuf Hassan, UNHCR spokesman in Islamabad, told IRIN. A three-week preliminary screening aimed at gathering information for the interview process would be started in mid-August, he added. The UNHCR representative in Pakistan, Hasim Utkan, said the agreement would ensure the proper protection of all those Afghans who deserved it. An earlier attempt to screen Afghans in the makeshift Jalozai camp near the provincial capital, Peshawar, was suspended by the authorities. Afghans opting to take part in the screening will be interviewed to determine their status, and those found in need of protection will be allowed to stay in Pakistan and relocated. Cases rejected will have a right to appeal, while those opting to go home will receive a voluntary repatriation grant comprising 150 kg of wheat flour and the equivalent of US $100 in cash. Recent surveys conducted in the Afghan camps in NWFP by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) have indicated that over 80 percent of residents interviewed chose to remain in Pakistan if their camps are closed by the authorities. Hassan said a similar joint-screening process had been undertaken in Iran, but local authority involvement waned during the process when a high proportion of Afghans were allowed to stay. He added that he did not know how the government would react if a high number of Afghans were granted refugee status in Pakistan. Under the agreement, a total of 30 staff from UNHCR and the Pakistani authorities will screen refugees in Jalozai and Nasir Bagh. Within three weeks of starting, the team will be increased to 55 and will eventually also cover the new Shamshatoo refugee camp. An estimated total of 180,000 Afghans are said to be living in the three settlements, all located in and around Peshawar. UN officials say they have urged the Pakistani authorities to treat those screened in accordance with international human rights standards, and permit a phased return of vulnerable Afghans. Pakistan hosts 2 million Afghan refugees, according to UN statistics, with more than half of them living in the NWFP. Islamabad has long contended that it cannot cope with the huge number of refugees and wants them to go home.