IRIN
PAKISTAN: UN-assisted repatriation drive resumes for registered refugees only
19 April 2007


TORKHAM, 19 April 2007 (IRIN) - The United Nations Refugees Agency 
(UNHCR) has resumed its assisted repatriation drive for more than two 
million Afghans living in Pakistan, the agency said on Thursday.

"Under the new UNHCR-assisted repatriation phase, only those refugees 
that hold proof of registration as Afghans living in Pakistan will 
receive cash grants," Salvatore Lombardo, UNHCR's representative in 
Afghanistan, told IRIN.

According to a tripartite agreement between UNHCR and the governments of 
Pakistan and Afghanistan, Afghan refugees will not be forced to leave 
Pakistan. However, they are required to register their presence in 
Pakistan and can choose to repatriate voluntarily.

In February 2007, the government of Pakistan embarked on a registration 
programme by which 2.2 million Afghans received Proof of Registration 
(PoR) documents that allow them to stay in the host country for the 
coming two years.

The refugee agency launched a grace period or assisted repatriation for 
unregistered refugees on 1 March that ended on 15 April. More than 
200,000 Afghans, mostly unregistered, left Pakistan for Afghanistan in 
this period of time, a spokesman for the organisation said in Kabul.

Those who are registered and wish to return to their country, must 
de-register their PoR's at UNHCR verification centres before receiving 
about US $100 upon their return to Afghanistan, the refugee body said.

"Unregistered Afghan refugees who want to return to their home country 
after 15 April will not receive cash assistance from UNHCR," Lombardo 
said.

Now, those Afghans who are not registered but continue to live in 
Pakistan do so illegally. It is unclear how many there are of them. 
However, some unregistered refugees are demanding the UN continue to 
provide assistance for their repatriation.

"We spent 15 days visiting the [returning refugees' verification] centre 
hoping that we will receive aid money to return home," said unregistered 
Afghan refugee Mohammad Ali. "Now, they [UNHCR] say we are late and 
therefore will get nothing."

Days in long queues

Another unregistered refugee, Hazrat Din, 42, whose seven-member family 
also spent days in long queues to receive cash grants, was also 
critical. "They [refugee verification centre staffs] are corrupt. Those 
who give them bribes receive cash tokens very easily," he said.

Some refugees complain about the way UNHCR and Pakistani police treat 
them in returning refugee centres, a charge not entirely denied by the 
refugee agency.

"I do not totally reject the charges of corruption and ill-treatment 
that might have happened in a few cases," said UNHCR's country director 
in Afghanistan, explaining the difficulty of dealing with hundreds of 
thousands of refugees.

According to UNHCR, some individuals complicated and caused delays in 
the six-week grace period by using various fraudulent means to receive 
cash grants more than once.

About 300,000 Afghan refugees are expected to voluntarily return from 
Pakistan in 2007, UNHCR said.

More than three million Afghans migrated to neighbouring Pakistan after 
their country was invaded by the former Soviet Union in 1979.

Many others migrated to Pakistan during the internecine fighting that 
took place after the Soviet forces' withdrawal in 1989.

UNCHR has assisted 3.7 million Afghans in their return to their home 
country since 2002, the single largest operation of its kind in the 
organisation's 55-year history. A further one million refugees have 
returned unassisted.


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