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UNHCR closing Shalman Refugee Camp on Sunday

March 20, 2004

ISLAMABAD, 20 March (UNHCR) - The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) will officially close Shalman refugee camp after the repatriation of the last residents on Sunday, marking the successful start to a programme that will see the number of camps shrink during the next two years.

The 28 families, with 148 individuals, who asked for UNHCR assistance to return to Afghanistan on Sunday, brought to 4,078 the number of residents of Shalman who chose to go home after more than two years in the waterless valley near the Khyber Pass.

Slightly more, 4,812 refugees, took the option of relocating to an existing refugee camp in a less barren area of the rugged Pakistani border region near Afghanistan. The last group of refugees to relocate to Kotkai Camp - 433 individuals - moved from Shalman in a UNHCR convoy on Friday.aising the total since operations began this month to 6,925. A UNHCR team will remain in Shalman for a few days in case any stragglers wishing help to repatriate appear at the camp, but all other assistance to the remote area ends after the last families leave on Sunday. The camp consolidation operation, which began on 7 March, went smoothly and finished two days ahead of schedule.

Shalman was chosen as the first camp in the consolidation programme because of its falling population - it could have accommodated about 26,000 people - and a harsh environment where providing assistance was both difficult and expensive. All water had to be brought by UNHCR tanker trucks.

Other camps in the group of 15 that were established to shelter Afghans fleeing the fighting in their country in late 2001 will also be closed to improve efficiency in providing services, both those in North West Frontier Province like Shalman and in Balochistan Province.

UNHCR is discussing the details of closures in both border provinces with government officials and expects more camp consolidation in the next few months.

The number of refugees in the camps has declined as Afghans return to their country under the UNHCR voluntary repatriation programme. The relocation of Shalman refugees to Kotkai, a well-watered location in Bajaur Agency, raised its population to 15,812, still below its capacity of 20,000.

Some 1.9 million Afghans left Pakistan in 2002 and 2003 and this year some 400,000 Afghans are expected to return. Between the start of this year's programme on 3 March and the end of the latest Sunday-to-Thursday repatriation week 11,170 refugees returned.

Last week UNHCR began its 2004 voluntary repatriation programme in Balochistan, which had been delayed by sectarian violence in Quetta. Afghans now have the choice of leaving Pakistan through either at the Chaman border crossing near Quetta or the Torkham crossing near Peshawar in NWFP

The repatriating refugees from Shalman went through the same procedures as other Afghans asking UNHCR assistance to return. All refugees over the age of six years go through a computerized iris check, which can detect immediately if someone has been tested before. Anyone found to have received assistance before is rejected. Refugees on arrival in Afghanistan receive a travel grant, which varies from $3 to $30 depending on the distance, plus $8 per head instead of the package of food and non-food items like household utensils that was given in previous years. Families who dismantle their houses in Pakistan and take the structural poles home receive another $5

The voluntary repatriation programme operates under an agreement signed by UNHCR and the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan that remains in effect until early 2006. The status of Afghans who remain in Pakistan after that date will be decided later. There are an estimated 1.1 million Afghans in refugee camps in Pakistan r parts of the country.

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