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Planned Afghan repatriation raises serious concerns

Thousands of unregistered Afghan refugees who have arrived in Pakistan since September last year are at risk of being deported in the coming months, a senior provincial government official told IRIN on Tuesday. Aid workers maintain that the strategy could place many refugees currently in camps near Peshawar, in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP), at serious risk of persecution by the Taliban Islamic Movement in Afghanistan. NWFP Governor Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah told IRIN that Afghans who had arrived since September were suffering from economic hardship and were not considered to be genuine refugees. “As I told the UN Secretary-General [Kofi Annan] when he visited two weeks ago, we are prepared to let them stay for a couple of months ... But, ultimately, they have to go back,” Shah said. The governor said that all recent arrivals who had not been formally registered as refugees would be returned, but that those who had been in Pakistan for over two years would be exempt. Such a policy would directly affect 80,000 refugees currently living in the makeshift Jalozai settlement, as well as any future Afghans fleeing to Pakistan. Governor Shah said that Pakistan faced its own problems with the Central Asian drought, and could not sustain any more Afghans in the area. He was particularly concerned that Pakistan could see a further influx of refugees from the conflict-affected north of Afghanistan because the Tajik and Uzbek borders remained closed to them. He dismissed the notion that returning Afghans would be exposed to any risk or harassment at the hands of the Taliban authorities. “There is no persecution in Afghanistan for these people; this is merely propaganda,” he said. However, humanitarian workers maintain that the policy of involuntary return of Afghan refugees is based on serious misconceptions relating to the refugee population and current conditions inside Afghanistan. A World Food Programme (WFP) survey in February indicated that two-thirds of the recent arrivals in Shamshatoo and Akora Khattak refugee camps in northwest Pakistan were of Tajik or Uzbek origin. A significant majority, 90 percent of those interviewed, cited that fighting was a major reason for their leaving their homes. Sigurd Hanson, head of the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Peshawar, told IRIN there was not simply one approach in dealing with the Afghan refugee population in Pakistan. He said that the refugee groups were extremely varied and there were numerous reasons as to why many would not wish to return. “While a number would not face persecution, many others would be at serious risk for reasons of gender, ethnicity or politics. These groups should not be sent back,” he said. Large numbers of Afghans could face persecution if forced to return because the local authorities and relief agencies do not have the screening mechanisms to filter out those most at risk from persecution, according to Hanson. “Proper screening would have to be set up in the event of a return of refugees,” he said. “At present, UNHCR and the Pakistani authorities do not have this capacity and would require the cooperation of NGOs.”

This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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