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AFGHANISTAN: Repatriation tops 400,000
30 April 2002


AFGHANISTAN: Repatriation tops 400,000

ISLAMABAD, 30 April (IRIN) - The campaign to facilitate the voluntary
return of hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees reached a new milestone
on Monday when the combined number of Afghans returning from Pakistan and
Iran reached 400,000. The joint repatriation programmes, between the
office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and
the Pakistani and Iranian governments, aim to assist 800,000 return to
Afghanistan this year.

"More than 20,000 Afghans a week are repatriating from Pakistan," the
acting UNHCR spokesman, Aslam Denarzai, told IRIN in the Pakistani
capital, Islamabad. "I expect the 400,000 mark to be crossed this
weekend," he maintained.

But the cumulative number of Afghan refugees who had repatriated from
Pakistan and Iran, the two countries hosting the greatest number of them -
about four million - had already surpassed that figure. As of Monday,
385,313 Afghans have been repatriated from Pakistan and 23,050 from Iran.

Of those returning from Pakistan, the vast majority were returning from
the country's North West Frontier Province (NWFP). "More than 320,000 have
returned from NWFP," Denarzai said. The programme, which began on 1 March,
has met unprecedented enthusiasm from Afghans wanting to take advantage of
an assistance package, comprising both food and non-food related items, as
well as a small cash grant.

"The operation is going well, and our only concern at this point is the
sustainability of the operation," he said.  Earlier, UNHCR called on the
international donor community for further assistance in maintaining the
programme, which hopes to repatriate 400,000 Afghans from both Pakistan
and Iran in 2002.

As part of its joint programme with the Pakistani government, UNHCR
maintains three voluntary repatriation centres (VRCs) in NWFP, where
Afghans wishing to participate in the programme register. These are
Takhtabaig, the largest of them, 16 km west of the provincial capital,
Peshawar, Azakhel, 40 km east of the city, and Nawapass, 180 km to the
northwest. An additional VRC at Attock, 80 km east of Peshawar, would soon
be added to that list. "Mobile teams are already working there, but it
will take the form of a VRC very soon," Denarzai noted.

Additionally, there is one VRC at Balali, 15 km north of Baluchistan's
provincial capital, Quetta, as well as one at Hub, 30 km north of the
commercial capital Karachi, along the border between Baluchistan and the
southeastern province of Sind. Operations were further enhanced by the
presence of mobile teams - with about 15 working throughout the country at
the moment.  "These teams can be dispatched according to needs," he
explained.

Meanwhile, in Iran, the momentum for the repatriation effort is also
growing. The UNHCR spokesman, Mohammad Nouri, told IRIN from the capital,
Tehran, that 2,465 Afghans had been repatriated on Monday - the largest
number for a single day since the programme began on 9 April.

While Dogharun in Iran's northeastern Khorasan province remained the main
crossing point for Afghans along the country's 900-km-plus frontier, a
second exit point in Milak in southeastern Sistan-Baluchestan Province was
expected to become operational soon, Nouri said.

There are currently nine VRCs throughout the country - located in the
cities of Tehran, Mashhad, Zahedan, Esfahan, Shiraz, Qom, Kerman, Arak and
Yazd. Efforts are currently under way to open a second centre in the
capital to better respond to the demand of Afghans queuing up to be
registered in Tehran's only VRC at Solimankhani.

Nouri said 25 percent of Afghan returnees were going to the Afghan
province of Kabul, followed by 12 percent to the western province of Herat
and 10 percent to Parvan in the east. Most of those participating in the
programme lived in Tehran, followed by the cities of Zahedan and Kerman,
he added.

Monday's repatriation figures were in addition to the ongoing number of
Afghans who had spontaneously returned unassisted. According to Nouri,
54,463 Afghans have spontaneously returned from Iran since the beginning
of this year alone.


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