March 5, 2003	Wednesday	Muharram 1, 1424

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PESHAWAR, March 4: The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has put off repatriation of Afghan refugees living outside the camps in the NWFP and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata), officials said.

A spokeswoman for the UN refugee agency told Dawn here on Tuesday that a very small number of refugees living in the urban areas had expressed desire to go back to their country under the voluntary repatriation programme, therefore, their (urban refugees) repatriation had been delayed till the end of March.

The spokeswoman said urban areas’ refugees would not be entertained in validation centres, established at Takhta Baig in Khyber Agency and at Alizai in Kurram Agency for one month.

Initially, she said, the UNHCR would focus only on refugee camps in the NWFP and Fata and had constituted enough mobile teams to facilitate the intended returnees. Mobile teams would visit camps to verify those refugee families who had aspiration to go back to their country, she added.

Sources said many refugee families arrived at the United Nations validation centre at Takhta Baig, Khyber Agency since the UNHCR resumed voluntary repatriation programme on Monday, but the UN staff refused to process their documents.

However, an official conceded that as a policy matter the government had decided to vacate refugee camps this time and it had been decided that Afghan Commissionerate and the UNHCR would focus only on camps during the ongoing repatriation process.

Last year, he said, repatriation programme was not conducted in an organised way and, as a result, a large number of refugees sneaked back into Pakistan after availing encashment and food facilities.