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UNHCR says no refugees opt for relocation from Chaman to Mohammed Kheil

September 13, 2004

CHAMAN, Pakistan, 13 Sept (UNHCR) - The UN Refugee Agency said no refugees in the four camps on the border at Chaman had accepted an offer to relocate to an alternative camp and it would proceed with the scheduled end to all activities in the Chaman camps on 15 September.

However, the final statistics showed 52 percent of the 70,000 residents who had been in the camps on the Balochistan border with Afghanistan at the start of the summer had opted to take an enhanced package of assistance from UNHCR and return home. Those who remained had been offered relocation to Mohammed Kheil, further from the border. UNHCR and the Government of Pakistan had announced in July that the UN Refugee Agency would end all assistance to "new" camps - those established for refugees from the 2001 fighting in Afghanistan. Water, medical assistance, education and sanitation continues to be provided in "old" camps established in previous years. Assistance ended on 1 September in North West Frontier Province, where all nine "new" camps are now closed.

UNHCR staff member discusses relocation with residents of Landi Karez camp at Chaman, Balochistan, on the border with Afghanistan. © UNHCR/J.Redden

The majority of the 65,000 refugees in NWFP camps repatriated. Emergency medical assistance and water was continued in Balochistan's Chaman camps to allow residents time to relocate to Mohammed Kheil.

However, refugees showed no interest in the offer to relocate to Mohammed Kheil, which houses other Afghans who fled the 2001 war and had previously sheltered earlier waves of refugees. Refugees in Mohammed Kheil will now receive the same assistance as "old" camps but not the food rations that were given only in "new" camps.

After two months of assisting those who wished to repatriate from Chaman, UNHCR teams turned to the relocation option. Staff held meetings with the refugees to offer relocation, distributed information sheets and then spent three consecutive days until Friday in the camps in case any families requested relocation.

Many Afghans in the Chaman camps said that rather than relocate to a camp where basic services are available they would prefer to stay without UNHCR assistance near the border town, where it is easy to find daily labouring jobs. All UNHCR assistance in the Chaman camps will now end on 15 September.

This end to assistance in Chaman marks the end of the most visible part of the 2001 Afghan refugee crisis, when UNHCR received permission from Pakistan to temporarily house a flood of some 300,000 refugees in refugee camps erected near the border.

It was especially difficult and expensive to provide services to the Chaman camps, which were located on a barren strip along the border with Afghanistan where water had to be supplied by tanker trucks. There were also increasing concerns about security because of the proximity to the porous border.

However, about a million refugees who arrived in previous waves from Afghanistan remain in camps in Pakistan. A substantial, but undocumented, number of Afghans also live in Pakistan's cities beyond the scope of UNHCR services.

The regular UNHCR repatriation assistance available to all Afghans wishing to return from Pakistan continues until March 2006. Since the programme began in March 2002, more than 2.25 million Afghans have gone home, including 350,000 this year.