Quaid-e-Azam University Road, Diplomatic Enclave 2, G-4Islamabad, Pakistan P.O.Box # 1263
Tel: +92 51-2829502-6 ext. 2421/2428 Fax # +92-51-227-7683

More than 300,000 Afghans leave Pakistan in 2004 under UNHCR repatriation programme

August 30, 2004

ISLAMABAD, 30 August (UNHCR) -- More than 300,000 Afghans have returned home from Pakistan this year under the UN Refugee Agency's voluntary repatriation programme, bringing the total assisted to return since 2002 to more than 2.2 million.

By the start of this week, more than 319,000 refugees had passed through the UNHCR repatriation centres in Pakistan and more than 292,000 of them had arrived at the UNHCR centres in Afghanistan where they receive their repatriation assistance. The numbers in August have been boosted by Afghans who asked to return from the "new" camps established to shelter those fleeing the 2001 war in their country. UNHCR, the World Food Programme and the Government of Pakistan announced in July that they were ending assistance to those camps on 1 September, with residents offered a package of enhanced aid if they wished to repatriate. "Today I am very happy because I am going back to my own country

UNHCR staff giving a Voluntary Repatriation Form (VRF) to the Afghan refugee leaving Islamabad to Afghanistan © UNHCR/A. Shahzad

forever with all my family members" said 40-year-old Wazir Khan, who was leaving Islamabad after 24 years in Pakistan. "It has been a long time in Pakistan. Now we have decided to go back, where I will do farming on my own land in Nangarhar."

All Afghans wishing to return can request UNHCR assistance, which consists of a travel grant ranging of $3 to $8, plus a cash grant of $8 to help the re-integration into Afghanistan. UNHCR staff carry out an iris recognition test to ensure claimants do not receive assistance a second time.

So far this year, 173,000 Afghans who have passed through the UNHCR departure centres in Pakistan came from North West Frontier Province, 83,000 from Balochistan, 33,000 from Sindh and 30,000 from Islamabad and Punjab. A total of 184,000 were living outside of established refugee camps, while 135,000 came from the camps.

Nearly 1.6 million Afghans returned home from Pakistan during 2002 in the initial enthusiasm that followed the removal of the Taliban government in late 2001. UNHCR assisted another 340,000 Afghans to return last year under the voluntary repatriation programme, which runs until March 2006.

Nearly a million Afghans have also returned from Iran during the same period, including 340,000 this year. Of the total, 667,000 left with UNHCR assistance and the rest returned on their own.