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Pakistan, UNHCR say census counts 3 million Afghans

May 2, 2005

ISLAMABAD, 2 May (UNHCR) - A census carried out across the country this year determined that just over three million Afghans who had arrived since 1979 are now living in Pakistan, the Government of Pakistan announced on Monday.

Sajid Hussain Chattha, Pakistan's Secretary of the Ministry for States and Frontier Regions (SAFRON); Najam Hasan, Pakistan's Chief Census Commissioner; and Guenet Guebre-Christos, representative of UNHCR in Pakistan, told a news conference the census carried out between late February and early March counted a total of 3,047,225 Afghans who had arrived after 1 December 1979. SAFRON deals with Afghan refugees. The census, carried out by the government with technical and financial assistance from the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), was the first exercise ever conducted to count the number of Afghans in Pakistan. Previous figures of those who had arrived since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan had always been estimates.

A census taker interviews Afghans in Peshawar © UNHCR/J.Redden

Under the agreement setting the terms of the census, UNHCR said it would accept the figures determined in the government exercise while the Government of Pakistan said it agreed that not all Afghans in the country would be of concern to the UN Refugee Agency.

The census, in all areas of Pakistan, found 1,861,412 Afghans were in North West Frontier Province, 783,545 were in Balochistan, 136,780 were in Sindh, 207,754 were in Punjab, 44,637 were in Islamabad and 13,097 were in Pakistani-administered Kashmir or the Northern Areas.
A more detailed report on the data gathered by the 3,000 census workers is being processed and will be available by the end of May. This will include the precise place of residence, source of livelihood, place of origin in Afghanistan, intention to return this year and other information.

"This data will be vital as the Government of Pakistan and UNHCR discuss ways to manage the Afghan population who might remain in Pakistan after the expiry of the current Tripartite Agreement," said Ms Guebre-Christos, head of UNHCR in Pakistan.

The voluntary repatriation programme, which assists Afghans wishing to return home, is conducted under a Tripartite Agreement between UNHCR and the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan that expires next March. More than 2.3 million Afghans have returned from Pakistan under the repatriation programme since 2002, with up to a further 400,000 expected to repatriate this year.

The Government and Pakistan intends to follow-up the present census with a registration next year of all Afghans recorded in the first stage.

UNHCR and the Government of Pakistan have begun discussing the future management of the remaining Afghan population. While some would remain of concern to UNHCR, others would fall into categories for which a new management mechanism will have to be put in place.

UNHCR and Pakistan are discussing ways to help both Pakistani and Afghan populations in areas where Afghans are not expected to repatriate in the immediate future. They are also examining sites where international assistance could be sought to rehabilitate areas damaged by the presence of refugees who have since returned to Afghanistan.