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Tripartite Commission on Afghans in Pakistan convenes in Islamabad

March 26, 2004

ISLAMABAD, 26 March (UNHCR) - The 4th Tripartite Commission meeting, which groups the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), will convene on Monday in Islamabad for its quarterly review of the programme to assist the repatriation of Afghans living in Pakistan.

The one-day meeting, which is alternately hosted by the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan and UNHCR, is this time under the chairmanship of Ashfaq Mehmood, the secretary of Pakistan's Ministry of Kashmir Affairs, Northern Areas and States and Frontier Regions.

The agenda covers a broad range of issues, including UNHCR's 2004 voluntary repatriation programme and its ongoing work to consolidate the limited number of "new" camps set up in Pakistan to house the refugees who fled war in Afghanistan in late 2001.

The participants will review a proposed census and registration of all Afghans living in Pakistan. A working group has been examining the procedures and requirements that would be needed for such an exercise later this year but no conclusions have yet been reached.

The Tripartite Commission, which was established a year ago, will also discuss conditions inside Afghanistan affecting the return of refugees from Pakistan, including plans for elections this year, economic developments and the state of security.

The Tripartite Commission provides a forum for the participants to coordinate policy on Afghan refugees, especially implementation of the UNHCR voluntary repatriation programme that assists refugees who wish to return to Afghanistan from Pakistan. Under the agreement signed in March 2003, the Commission will continue its work until March 2006.

Since the last meeting of the Tripartite Commission in Dubai in December and hosted by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency in Pakistan has resumed its voluntary repatriation programme that assisted 1.9 million Afghans to return during 2002 and 2003. About 20,000 refugees have returned from Pakistan since UNHCR resumed assisting repatriation at the beginning of this March, a higher pace than last year. Some 400,000 Afghans are expected to return from Pakistan during all of 2004.

In March, UNHCR also closed the first of the "new" refugee camps slated for consolidation over the next two years. The last of the 9,000 residents of Shalman Camp near the Khyber Pass moved on 21 March, with slightly more than half the refugees relocated to Kotkai Camp in Bajaur Agency and the rest choosing to repatriate to Afghanistan.

The Tripartite Commission will review plans, already approved in principle, for further consolidation of the "new" camps established to shelter the 2001 wave of refugees in both North West Frontier Province and Balochistan. That includes closing a cluster of camps along the Pakistani-Afghan border near the city of Chaman in Balochistan, with residents offered a choice of repatriation or relocation to another refugee camp.

UNHCR estimates there are about 1.1 million refugees in official camps in Pakistan who have arrived in waves over the past quarter century. In addition, there are a substantial but unknown number of Afghans living elsewhere in Pakistan.