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UNHCR announces end of Chaman refugee camps

September 17, 2004

CHAMAN, Pakistan, 17 Sept (UNHCR) - The UN Refugee Agency said on Friday the four camps set up on the border of Balochistan Province to provide emergency shelter to refugees fleeing the 2001 war in Afghanistan were now nearly empty and it had ended assistance.

More than 40,000 of the estimated 70,000 refugees in the camps - Roghani, Landi Karez, Dara 1 and Dara 2 - have left for Afghanistan since the offer was made in July of an enhanced repatriation package for those choosing to go home. An estimated 15,000 have moved into the "old" camps established before the 2001 emergency, about 10,000 refugees were discovered to have been registered twice and a couple of thousand have decided to remain near Chaman, where they have opportunities for casual labour. The end to assistance at Chaman followed the closing of all nine "new" camps in North West Frontier Province by 31 August, with more than 39,000 of the 71,000 residents repatriating. UNHCR services in Latifibad, the remaining "new" camp in Balochistan, will end on the weekend.

A boy scavenges through the ruins of abandonned houses in Landi Karez, one of the four Chaman camps © UNHCR/J. Redden

The decision to end support in the "new" camps was announced jointly by UNHCR and the Government of Pakistan in July. The camps, in isolated locations near the border, were expensive and difficult to service. There was also increasing concern about their proximity to a porous and unstable border.

Refugees were given the opportunity to return to Afghanistan with an enhanced package of assistance, which included three months of food and a tent. More that 87,000 returned to Afghanistan, while most others relocated themselves to "old" camps where UNHCR will continue to provide education, health assistance, water and sanitation. There is no food assistance, which had been provided only in "new" camps.

The only camp used for the 2001 influx of refugees that remains is Mohammed Kheil in Balochistan, which was already in use for refugees who had arrinved in the previous two decades of flows from Afghanistan. Residents of Mohammed Kheil will receive the same assistance as in other "old" camps.

UNHCR continues to operate its normal repatriation programme, assisting any Afghan in Pakistan who wishes to go home. About 2,000 residents of the Chaman camps who had earlier declined the enhanced repatriation package left on Thursday and Friday of this week under the normal programme, the final departures from the four camps.

UNHCR has so far assisted the repatriation of more than 2.26 million Afghans from Pakistan, including about 360,000 this year. It anticipates about half a million more Afghans will leave in 2005, the last full year of the repatriation programme.