U N I T E D  N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN)
13 March 2002


CENTRAL ASIA: No deal at Caspian Sea conference

AFGHANISTAN: Enthusiasm for repatriation leads to delays

ISLAMABAD, 13 March (IRIN) - Many thousands of Afghan refugees are waiting
in long queues as a result of unexpected enthusiasm for UNHCR's voluntary
repatriation drive at the Takhtabaig voluntary repatriation centre (VRC)
near Peshawar, capital of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP)
on Wednesday.

Afghan journalist Muhammad Zahir Babri, who visited the site on Wednesday,
told IRIN that thousands of families with their belonging loaded onto
vehicles were waiting their turn for registration. "Some families have
been waiting for more than two days and the general mood was chaotic," he
said.

"Most of the people I talked to are genuinely interested in resettling in
their homeland," he said. "I felt that repatriating people did not know
very well about the programme," Babri added.

As part of the initial UNHCR-sponsored process, refugees at Takhtabaig
receive registration papers entitling them to receive a cash grant, food
supplies and a repatriation package once they arrive back in Afghanistan.
The papers also serve as identity documents for the whole family.

Commenting on the issue, Melita Sunjic, spokeswomen for UNHCR, told IRIN
that there were some 4,000 refugee families in Takhtabaig VRC on
Wednesday, - equal to the total number of families processed for
repatriation last week.

"The planning capacity was to process 1,000 families per day but we
registered some 1,300 families on Tuesday," she said, adding that some
delays were caused by the "fake returnees" who wanted to benefit from the
UNHCR package but did not genuinely intend to return.

Asked where most of the returnee families go once inside Afghanistan, she
explained that the majority went to the capital Kabul. "Despite our
attempts to discourage return to the eastern province of Nangarhar because
of the security situation, it is receiving the second largest number of
returnees," she added.

Under the joint UNHCR and Pakistani government programme, of the seven
VRCs in the country, four will be in NWFP, two in the southwest province
of Baluchistan and one in the southern commercial city of Karachi.


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