January 29, 2002	Tuesday	Ziqa’ad 14, 1422

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ISLAMABAD, Jan 28: The UNHCR has decided to intensify efforts to identify invisible refugees who continue to live precariously in urban centres such as Peshawar and Quetta and relocate them to refugee camps where better assistance could be provided to them.

Speaking at a news conference here on Monday UNHCR representative to Pakistan Hasim Utkan said the UN refugee agency was gearing up to help as many as one million Afghans return home from the neighbouring countries in March-April this year. Half of the estimated number was expected to return from Pakistan in a repatriation operation to be carried out jointly by Pakistan and UNHCR, he said.

The UNHCR chief said the growing insecurity and instability in many parts of country especially in southern and eastern Afghanistan continued to uproot Afghans. Since September 2001, more than 200,000 Afghans had come into Pakistan, posing considerable challenge to both Pakistan and the UNHCR.

Mr Utkin said in a remarkably collaborative effort with the federal government, provincial authorities in the NWFP and Balochistan, sister UN agencies such as WFP, UNICEF and WHO as well as non-governmental organizations, UNHCR had so far set up 14 new refugee camps in the two border provinces which today hosted more than 151,000 refugees.

About shifting of DPs from the Jalozai camp near Peshawar where more than 60,000 Afghans had for nearly a year endured enormous hardships, he said in two months, the UNHCR and CAR had re-located over 43,000 people from Jalozai to new Kotkai, Shalman, Basu and Old Bagzai refugee camps in the tribal areas.