IRIN
AFGHANISTAN: Focus on returnees to Shamali plains
31 March 2005


[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United 
Nations]

BAG-E AALAM, 31 March (IRIN) - Many Afghans returning to the Shamali 
plains, north of the capital Kabul, continue to find it hard to rebuild 
their lives due to unemployment and a lack of basic amenities and 
facilities.

The Shamali plains is a vast area wedged between the mountains 
stretching to the north from the capital and one of the most fertile 
areas in the country, once a major grape growing region. During the 
conflict between the Taliban and opposition Northern Alliance, the 
former burned and destroyed all the vineyards. Now it's possible to see 
young grape trees growing on the both sides of the main road passing 
through the area, replanted by returnees since the Taliban regime was 
ousted in late 2001.

But the region is also one of the most heavily mined areas in the 
country and there are still some signs close to the grape plantations 
and villages warning passers-by not to proceed because of the potential 
danger. De-miners carry out their scrupulous work while cars pass by and 
local residents work the fields, which either had been de-mined or 
declared safe.

Nozanin, a petite woman looking much older then her 35 years, lives in 
the village of Bag-e Aalam about two hours drive from Kabul, having 
returned there recently after seven years in a refugee camp in Karachi, 
southern Pakistan.

"We are happy to be back home. There is nothing like being back in your 
home country," the mother of six said, adding, however, that life was 
not easy for them, as they had to restart their new lives from scratch. 
They lack access to clean drinking water, her husband is unemployed and 
daughters of school age cannot go to school as they are in their teens 
and never attended school before.

"They would feel uncomfortable if they went to school with kids who are 
half their age. But my younger daughter will go to school," Nozanin told 
IRIN.

She recalled how they fled their home when the Taliban first arrived. 
"They came here and forced us to leave our houses. First we left for 
Kabul, but then decided to go to Pakistan," she said.

Sali Muhammad, 29, another returnee from Pakistan in Bag-e Aalam, 
returned in 2003 after having lived in that country for more than 20 
years. "We left for Pakistan when I was eight as my father passed away 
then. We fled our homeland because of the communist regime. And every 
time a new regime came to power in Kabul we were closely watching the 
situation," he told IRIN. "We didn't feel that we could return and then 
the Taliban came and that made us stay in Pakistan for such a long 
time," the father of three explained.

Along with returnees from Pakistan, many Afghans are returning from 
Iran. Two brothers, Hamidullah, 28, and Ahmadullah, 26, are among them. 
They had lived there for more than five years and returned about 10 
months ago. "All our community had to flee because of the Taliban. We 
were forced to leave as the houses were burned down and all the trees 
were cut. The Taliban burned everything and we lost everything we had," 
Hamidullah told IRIN.

The Shamali plains were one of the main frontlines during the conflict 
between the Taliban and Northern Alliance. There were about 1,500 
villages in the area and when the fighting broke out most of them were 
destroyed.

"During the conflict you could not find anyone here as all of the 
residents left for Pakistan and Iran. Now they are coming back," Abdul 
Habib Hamidi, a field officer with the Jaweed Rehabilitation 
Organisation for Afghanistan, a local NGO assisting returnees, told 
IRIN, adding that some residents left their homes and came back but had 
to leave again due to ongoing instability and conflicts. "Some families 
had become refugees up to three times."

According to the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for 
Refugees (UNHCR), more than 200,000 returnees went back to their homes 
in the seven districts, comprising the Shamali plains.

"In the Shamali plains it's been an area of heavy return," Tim Irwin, a 
spokesman for UNHCR in Afghanistan, told IRIN in Bag-e Aalam.

"Almost each and every one in the Shamali plains is a returnee either 
from Pakistan or have been displaced during the war. Most of these 
people were assisted by UNHCR and have gone back to their areas of 
origin," Nader Farhad, a public information assistant with the UN 
refugee agency, told IRIN.

"Last year we had around 700,000 returnees in the country, about half of 
them from Pakistan and half from Iran, and some 40,000 returnees from 
non-neighbouring countries. And obviously some of them have come here," 
Irwin added.

MAIN CHALLENGES FOR RETURNEES

"For people coming back the main challenges are finding work, shelter, 
schools for their children and adequate healthcare. These are 
developmental issues associated with poverty and clearly although a lot 
has changed in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban, it still 
remains a poor country," Irwin maintained. "These are ongoing challenges 
for everybody in this country."

Afghanistan's first ever National Human Development Report (NHDR), 
supported by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and launched in 
February, revealed that the country's Human Development Index (HDI) fell 
close to the bottom of the 177 countries ranked by the global Human 
Development Report 2004, way behind all of its neighbours and only just 
above Burundi, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Sierra Leone.

The report provides shocking findings, including the fact that every 30 
minutes a woman in Afghanistan dies from pregnancy-related causes. It 
also notes that 20 percent of children die before the age of five and 
that more than 300,000 children may have perished during the conflict.

The report also says that the poorest 30 percent of the population 
receive only 9 percent of the national income, while the upper 30 
percent receive 55 per cent.

For many returnees coming back meant not only being home but starting a 
new life full of challenges. There are still many difficulties lying 
ahead of the returnees, Farhad said.

SHELTER

Nozanin's family of nine now lives in a house made of mud where a couple 
of rooms have recently been finished with assistance from UNHCR. While 
the family was in Pakistan they managed to save some money and used it 
for building their new home.

"The Shamali is one of the main areas for our shelter programme. The 
shelter programme provides assistance in terms of both materials and 
some financial assistance to those vulnerable families who have 
returned," Irwin said.

In order to qualify for that assistance returnees need to have access to 
a piece of land. Then UNHCR provides them with building materials and 
the assistance is given in a staggered way. Monitoring teams from the 
agency and implementing partners go and see how work is progressing. If 
they build the walls then they get the window frames and so on.

"At the end of the process before the building is officially handed over 
to the beneficiary they get a small cash grant, around US $50 to cover 
some of their labour costs. Roughly speaking, the cost of our assistance 
depending on the area and materials used, is about $650. And the overall 
cost of a house depending on the area and materials is approximately 
$1,200," Irwin explained.

Since the UNHCR shelter programme began in 2002, some 110,000 shelters 
have been constructed across the country. In 2004, the UN agency 
provided around 27,500 shelters and the plans for 2005 is to slightly 
reduce that. The average returnee family has about six to seven members, 
suggesting that roughly 715,000 returnees benefited from the shelter 
since 2002, including an estimated 180,000 returnees in 2004.

Returnees need a place to live and for those people who do not have land 
one of the big pressing issues for the country is land distribution, 
Irwin maintained. "We advocate strongly that there be a process or 
programme of land distribution in the urban areas and also in the rural 
areas and there are indications that that's begun and will continue," he 
said.


ACCESS TO CLEAN DRINKING WATER

But shelter is not the only problem; access to potable water in the area 
is another major concern. During the fighting between the Taliban and 
Northern Alliance, the water infrastructure was severely damaged and 
many water canals and wells still need rehabilitation.

"There is a problem with water in our area. This water tap was working 
for two years, but then it broke down and there is no engineer or 
mechanic to repair it," Ata Habib, an elderly resident of the Bag-e 
Aalam village, told IRIN. "There is a mosque close to this water tap and 
residents from several villages around come here for Friday prayers but 
there is no water for them."

"One of the main issues we have currently is access to clean drinking 
water and water from the nearby small stream is not drinkable at all 
during the day time as it is contaminated," another village resident 
confirmed.

However, UNHCR and its implementing partners are trying to help 
returnees tackle that problem. "UNHCR's water programme aims to put a 
water point into areas where there are a high concentrations of returnee 
families. It's obviously still an issue for a lot of families but what 
we've tried to do when we are creating or constructing a large number of 
shelters is also to try to supplement that with a water point," Irwin 
said.

Some of the residents like Hamidullah and his family address the issue 
themselves by digging wells in the yards. "It is good and we do not have 
to bring water from a long distance," he said.


LACK OF JOBS

A third challenge facing returnees is the issue of jobs. As in many 
post-conflict countries, returnees face the problem of unemployment, 
while the country is still reeling from more than 20 years of conflict.

"The issue of income is a problem here because there are no jobs and all 
of the young people are jobless now. That's why many of them go to 
Pakistan or Iran for six or eight months to work and then come back," 
Hamidi noted.

Indeed, like many returnees Nozanin's husband was jobless for the last 
three months due to winter. He is doing odd jobs when he can find a 
day's work, Nozanin said. "Currently he is working digging canals for 
the local irrigation system and he is paid some money, which is for the 
time being enough for us," she said. "We don't have any problems with 
security and the only major worry is to find a stable job for my 
husband."

In an effort to sustain themselves, many returnee families are involved 
in carpet weaving and Nozanin's family is no exception. A vendor makes 
an agreement with the returnee family and provides all the necessary 
materials. Then the vendor gives them a deadline, ranging from two to 
four months, and pays them when the job is complete.

The price for the labour, depending on the size of the carpet and 
materials, varies, but generally the workers are paid some $50 per sq m, 
suggesting that they would get $300 for a six sq m carpet. "One of the 
things that we learned while we were in Pakistan is carpet weaving, 
Nozanin said, adding that it was a very good source of income for them.

But despite the challenges, many returnees remain optimistic about their 
future. "Life is slowly improving and we are optimistic about the 
future," Sali Muhammad said.

Meanwhile, the UN-supported NHDR noted that although many gains had been 
made over the past two years, the country could still fall into a cycle 
of conflict and instability unless people's genuine grievances regarding 
unemployment, health, education and poverty were dealt with adequately.

"Afghans will need and expect the sustained engagement of the 
international community.All [UN] agencies can and are expected to play a 
supportive role in longer-term reconstruction involving building state 
capacity to provide services in education, health, agriculture, national 
and subnational administration," United Nations Secretary-General Kofi 
Annan said in his latest report on the situation in Afghanistan 
delivered on 22 March.


IRIN-Asia
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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 
2005


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