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UNHCR starts repatriation of Afghan refugees from Pakistan

March 03, 2004

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, 3 March (UNHCR) - The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) launched its 2004 voluntary repatriation programme on Wednesday, assisting 65 Afghans to return from Pakistan to their homeland.

The start came one day later than initially expected, with Afghan refugees choosing not to travel on Tuesday because it was the Shiite holy day of Ashura, the 10th of Moharram.

Staff of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Peshawar assisted 13 different families, who were processed and headed through the Khyber Pass to Afghanistan. UNHCR staff in Islamabad pre-registered refugees who will leave later in the week.

All returning refugees over the age of six years - 49 of the 65 individuals - went through the Iris Validation Centre (IVC) where they were checked to ensure they had not previously gone through the procedure and received UNHCR assistance. Computers provide instant recognition of any iris that was previously checked.

The UNHCR office in Quetta was closed because the city was under curfew following sectarian violence in the capital of Balochistan on Tuesday that left more than 40 people dead.

That violence also disrupted procedures for the return of refugees from Karachi. Because of the circumstances, UNHCR allowed families to leave Karachi for Afghanistan without taking an iris recognition test in Quetta because that IVC - one of the two in Pakistan -- was closed.

The number of refugees returning is expected to accelerate in the coming days, as in the previous two years of the voluntary repatriation programme. The UN Refugee Agency has estimated 400,000 Afghans will return from Pakistan during 2004, following 1.9 million since the start of the programme in 2002.

UNHCR provides refugees with financial assistance to cover transportation costs plus $8 per returnee in place of the package of food and non-food items like plastic buckets that was given in previous years.

The voluntary repatriation programme is governed by a tripartite agreement between UNHCR and the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan that will provide assistance to returning refugees through 2005. UNHCR has offered to screen Afghans who remain in Pakistan after that to see who needs the continuing protection of refugee status.

UNHCR estimates there are 1.1 million refugees left in camps in Pakistan and an unknown, but substantial, number in other parts of the country. UNHCR and the Government of Pakistan are discussing a possible census and registration later this year of all Afghans - refugees and others - who are living in Pakistan.