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UNHCR closing two Iris Verification Centres

September 16, 2004

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, 16 September (UNHCR) - The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) this week is closing two of its secondary Iris Verification Centres that are no longer needed because of the end of "new" refugee camps and a fall in repatriation numbers due to the approach of winter in Afghanistan.

Thursday was the final day of operation for the centre at Alizai in Kurram Agency of North West Frontier Province (NWFP). The iris centre at Chaman in Balochistan Province will close on Friday after processing the last 1,200 refugees who have requested to repatriate from the four nearby refugee camps where UNHCR assistance ended this month. The Iris Verification Centres conduct scans on the eyes of Afghan refugees over the age of six years as part of the process for verifying which refugees are entitled to UNHCR assistance to return to homes in Afghanistan. The iris scan detects anyone who has previously been through the procedure to prevent refugees returning to Pakistan and claiming return assistance a second time.

Refugees in Chaman, framed by the ruins of an abandonned house, pack to leave © UNHCR/J. Redden

Afghan refugees returning from the NWFP and Punjab will now be processed only at the Hayatabad Iris Verification Center in Peshawar. Refugees returning from Balochistan will go through the Baleli Iris Verification Centre on the outskirts of Quetta. Refugees from Sind can use either centre before exiting Pakistan.

UNHCR Pakistan introduced the technology in September 2002 to make sure assistance was given only to deserving Afghan refugees. The process takes an image of an iris, storing it in the form of a number without recording the name, gender, age or destination. The technology has no effect on the eye. Because of the cultural sensitivity, female Afghan returnees are checked by UNHCR female staff workers to ensure their faces are not seen by male staff.

UNHCR has assisted 354,638 Afghan refugees to head back to Afghanistan from Pakistan this year. UNHCR repatriated 178,481 refugees from NWFP, 109,556 from Balochistan, 34,462 from Sindh and 32,139 from Punjab/Islamabad. The total since 2002 is more than 2.26 million.

Each Afghan returning from Pakistan receives a travel grant on arrival ranging from $3 to $30 to cover transportation, plus $8 instead of food and other material assistance provided in previous years.

This is a voluntary repatriation programme that UNHCR has operated since March 2002 and will continue until March 2006. The number returning reaches a peak in the summer and is minimal during the harsh Afghan winter.