Focus on Afghan refugees’ removal from Nasir Bagh

Facing eviction, a frail but very vocal Zahir Khan Jabberkhel was one of the first residents at the Nasir Bagh refugee camp for Afghans in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP). Now, 20 years on, he and the other 120,000 Afghans at the site are being forced to leave by the Pakistani government to make way for a new housing development. “It is a catastrophe,” he told IRIN. “We are not going out of our free will and we don’t know where to go.” Jabberkhel asked how it was possible for the refugees to return to Afghanistan when the ongoing civil war is showing no sign of ending and there is a growing humanitarian crisis. “We cannot go back and we cannot afford to move to another Pakistani city,” he said. “Pakistan is not getting international aid that is why they say they cannot house us. The housing development is just an excuse,” Jabberkhel said, when asked why he thought the camp was being closed. He explained that the policy against Afghan refugees had worsened with the change in government following the 1999 coup by General Pervez Musharraf, now President of Pakistan. Jabberkhel was worried that the situation could get even worse. Nasir Bagh has proven a contentious issue between the Pakistani authorities and the international aid community following an eviction order by Islamabad this spring. The refugees are furious and ignored a 30 June deadline for eviction but, a few days, later elders from the camp said they would leave. Two thousand one hundred and twenty six Afghan families vacated their homes and returned through a UN facilitated repatriation programme between 3-19 July, but many are still faced with the dilemma of where to go next. Eighty percent of the 231 families interviewed at Nasir Bagh said they “don’t know where they will go or whether to remain in Pakistan,” according to an International Rescue Committee (IRC) report released on Monday. Many made it clear that they were financially unable to resettle elsewhere and the results underscore an urgent need for a screening process. Screening and Alternative Accommodation Needed “There needs to be a comprehensive screening programme to determine who can stay,” IRC country director for Pakistan/Afghanistan, Sigurd Hanson, told IRIN. The government of Pakistan and UNHCR should be prepared to find substantial numbers of persons in Nasir Bagh who qualify for refugee status when the proposed screening is conducted, according to the IRC. The NGO’s survey figures suggested “that many Nasir Bagh residents may have well-founded fears of persecution in Afghanistan,” it said. Hanson maintained that Nasir Bagh was not like the makeshift Jalozai camp near Peshawar, where people fed up with the poor living conditions are fleeing back to their homeland. Only 17 percent of the Nasir Bagh interviewees said they would return to Afghanistan, according to the assessment. Only after adequate housing is available will the government be able to vacate Nasir Bagh without creating a crisis elsewhere, the IRC report stated. “If alternative shelter is not found for those who stay in Peshawar, there could be a major crisis in the city,” Hanson said. Pakistan’s first priority should be to identify and secure alternative accommodation for a large number of Afghans who will inevitably remain in the country after the closure of the camp, the IRC report stated. Legally, there is a vacuum regarding the status of the refugees, since Pakistan is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees or the 1967 refugee protocol. Established following the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Nasir Bagh is one of the oldest settlements for Afghans. It is a self-contained village, with 30 schools, health clinics and numerous shops and stalls. Concern That Repatriation Should be Voluntary Pakistani authorities have long contended that it can no longer cope with the huge number of refugees and the government has already started operations to bulldoze houses, many painstakingly built by the refugees themselves. “Police officers are not intimidating refugees,” the head of the commission for Afghan refugees, Naeem Khan, told IRIN. “It is simple: these people must leave, we simply cannot cope.” When asked what the NWFP government would do if Afghans started returning, as the IRC report said they might, Khan replied: “That’s our headache. We will deal with it when it happens.” He also suggested that many of the Afghan refugees wanted to go to Europe and the US, and, in fact, did not want to stay in Pakistan. The IRC report called on UNHCR to “carefully monitor its current voluntary repatriation programme,” suggesting that some of the repatriations may not be truly voluntary. “We encourage UNHCR to consider seriously whether hasty, large-scale repatriations to Afghanistan at this time are, as a matter of policy, desirable given the seriousness of the humanitarian crisis there,” it stated. Under the repatriation programme, those who volunteer to leave Pakistan for Afghanistan receive US $90 and 150 kg of wheat donated by WFP. So far, a total of 4,800 Afghan refugees living in Pakistan have “opted to return home,” according to UNHCR. “There is no doubt that they are returning voluntarily, and we are hoping to start screening soon,” the UNHCR spokesman in Islamabad, Peter Kessler, maintained. However, the UN and Islamabad have yet to resolve when screening could take place. From Refugees to Displaced People? There has been widespread concern over whether returnees would be displaced once inside Afghanistan, adding to the 800,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) in Afghanistan uprooted because of the ongoing drought, the most severe in 30 years, and the conflict between the ruling Taliban Islamic Movement of Afghanistan and the opposition Northern Alliance. Kessler told IRIN that 51 percent of Afghan returnees were going back to their original homes but the IRC maintains that more needs to be done to help returnees. “Planning doesn’t stop at the border. There needs to be a plan for Afghans once they return home,” Hanson said. The UN said it was mobilising teams to monitor returnees. Concerned about the situation of returnees from Nasir Bagh, the Taliban said on Tuesday that it wanted to set up a camp in Jalalabad city, in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar, for returnees from Nasir Bagh. “We will provide the land and security, and we would like NGOs and the UN to help us with water, shelter and sanitation,” the Taliban embassy spokesman in Islamabad, Mohammed Suhail Shaheen, told IRIN. He said that no discussions had yet taken place with the UN with regard to new camps, but that the decision (to establish one in Jalalabad) had been made following reports of police harassment of Afghan refugees and general hostility in Pakistan. “We want Afghans to live a normal life and not be mistreated. The camp would be more peaceful for them to live in,” he said. For the refugees themselves, the future remains in doubt. Jabberkhel said he couldn’t have imagined this situation arising and spoke of the early days when local people in Peshawar donated timber and straw, the raw materials used for building most of the mud huts that stand in Nasir Bagh today. “If the Pakistani government thinks it is okay for us to go back, then why don’t they implement Taliban rules here and see how people like it,” he added. Highlighting this reluctance to return home, 62 percent of Afghan refugees told the IRC they would not want to go back to Afghanistan even if they were provided with assistance. “Every day the police knock on our doors and tell us to get out,” Jabberkhel said. “When we ask them where we should go, they say they don’t care and that they are not responsible for us. We hate the tone of voice the police use with us; they may as well physically abuse us,” he added. Refugees Left Confused and Fearful For most of the refugees, Nasir Bagh is and will always be home, according to Jabberkhel. He reminisced about his years spent at the camp. “During the ‘80s, this camp was a showcase and those were the glory days”, he added, citing conversations he had with world leaders, including former US President George Bush and former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Jabberkhel also spoke about the damaging effects the eviction would have on Afghan children who were born in Pakistan and who have at least some chance of getting on in life. “Our children will lose out on education. What sort of future will they have?” he asked. Refugees were also concerned over how some 2,500 widows and around 1,000 disabled people at Nasir Bagh would survive in Afghanistan, he added. At present, 3,000 girls are being taught at Nasir Bagh but education for girls is banned in Afghanistan and women are not allowed to work. The IRC recommended that UNHCR and the government of Pakistan should conduct a more extensive information campaign within Nasir Bagh to inform families of their operations and the process they will undergo in the upcoming months. Discussion with residents revealed that many families did not know basic facts about the closing of the camp, including that a screening to determine refugee status would take place and that a voluntary repatriation program had already begun, it said. Meanwhile, one family waiting to leave Nasir Bagh had packed some belongings, comprising pots, pans and few clothes, having lived there for 21 years. “My children will starve to death in Afghanistan,” Budree Jamal, a 25-year-old mother of four, told IRIN. She and her blind husband said they had been told by the police that they had to go, and they were ready to leave on the next repatriation truck because they were scared about what might happen if they stayed any longer. “We don’t have a house in Afghanistan,” said Nasir. “My husband is unable to work and I too will not be able to work.” The couple fled Jalalabad in the face of war and were now preparing to go back, but not out of choice. “I don’t want to go back. Women are restricted and I will have to wear a burkha [traditional Islamic cloak for women, covering head to toe],” she added. A growing climate of hostility against Afghans in Pakistan, combined with deteriorating living conditions, has made some of the 57,000 refugees in the Jalozai camp near Peshawar, change their minds about wanting to remain in Pakistan. Many now say they can live a better life in their war- torn homeland. Since UNHCR started a repatriation programme earlier this month, 1,452 families fed up with their situation at Jalozai have left. Abdul Wahid, father of four and a refugee from Parvan district, near the Afghan capital, Kabul, said he had arrived seven months ago but that his family had barely been able to stay alive. “Our children are ill, I can’t provide for my family here,” he said. Wahid, who had left behind land where he used to grow grapes and melons, was unsure whose hands it may have fallen into but was willing to take a chance on finding out as a last hope for his family. “We are waiting for the [repatriation] trucks to come so we can go back to Afghanistan,” he added.