IRIN
PAKISTAN: Afghan registration passes half million mark
30 November 2006


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

PESHAWAR, 30 November (IRIN) - More than half a million Afghans living 
in Pakistan have been registered in a drive to provide them with 
official identification for a three-year period, UN officials said on 
Thursday.

The US $6 million registration exercise started on 15 October, is a 
follow-up to a comprehensive Afghan census conducted in Pakistan in 
February and March 2005, which found more than 3 million Afghans were 
still living in the country.

"After an initial slow start, the pace [of registration] has picked up 
in recent weeks and a total of over 525,000 Afghans have so far 
registered themselves with Pakistani authorities," Vivian Tan, a 
spokeswoman for the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for 
Refugees (UNHCR), said in Peshawar, capital of Pakistan's North West 
Frontier Province (NWFP).

"Some 19,000 Afghans are being registered daily in over 60 locations 
countrywide and the daily registration numbers have been increasing 
steadily, especially in NWFP," Tan added.

The campaign is to continue until the end of the year.

A provincial breakdown of Afghan registration so far suggests that more 
than half of those registered come from NWFP, another 22 percent from 
Balochistan, 15 percent from Punjab, 10 percent from Sindh and 1.3 
percent from Pakistani-administered Kashmir.

In NWFP, the accelerated pace of Afghan refugee registration may be 
linked to the detention of over 1,000 Afghan nationals over the past 
month during a police crackdown following a series of explosions in the 
provincial capital.

At least five explosions have taken place in Peshawar since September 
19, including one on October 20, which killed at least eight people and 
injured dozens more, local media reported.

"More than 1,100 Afghan refugees have been arrested [by city police] 
under different sections of law during the one-month crackdown," a 
leading national daily, The News, reported on Thursday.

Some 20 percent of those detained have been deported to Afghanistan, the 
newspaper report said quoting Peshawar city police chief 
Habib-ur-Rehman.

Some 2,000 Afghans were arrested during a similar clampdown in March 
this year.

The ongoing registration campaign aims to provide Afghan refugees with 
temporary legal status through a Proof of Registration (PoR) card, which 
recognises the bearer as an Afghan citizen living temporarily in 
Pakistan.

Pakistan's National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) is 
conducting the exercise, using fingerprint biometrics and photos to 
record information through fixed and mobile registration centres across 
the country with the support of the government's Commissionerate for 
Afghan Refugees (CAR) and the UN refugee agency.

Many Afghans who were not counted in the census have been showing up at 
registrations centres, and slowing up the process, according to NADRA.

The head of the CAR, Nayyar Agha, on Thursday asked Afghans who were not 
in the census to wait till registration was completed. "The government 
will decide on policies for their future."

Meanwhile, a tripartite meeting between Islamabad, Kabul and the UN 
refugee agency, which was scheduled for early December, has been 
postponed until the second half of January 2007. The three parties are 
expected to discuss the modalities of a new voluntary Afghan 
repatriation programme due to start in March 2007.

More than 2.8 million Afghan refugees have returned from Pakistan since 
2002 under a UNHCR-assisted voluntary repatriation programme that ended 
on 14 October after five years.


IRIN-Asia
Tel: +90 312 454 1177
Fax: +90 312 495 4166
Email: IrinAsia@IRINnews.org


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Appropriate Donations for International Disaster/Humanitarian Needs
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Center for International                  web: www.cidi.org
     Disaster Information             listserv: www.cidi.org/listsub.htm
                                    guidelines: www.cidi.org/donate.htm
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Central Asia                  www.cidi.org/humanitarian/hsr/centralasia