PESHAWAR, March 12: The first batch of refugees left for Afghanistan on Wednesday under the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees repatriation programme.

The batch of 52 families, comprising 321 people, left the Katcha Garhi camp on 21 vehicles, including buses, trucks and pick-ups. Of the group, 80 per cent will go to Kabul and the rest to Jalalabad and Helmond.

The refugees said they had been asked by the authorities to vacate the  camp by March 20. They had been living in the camp for 22 years.

Last year, the repatriation started on March 1 and 1.5 million refugees returned.  

This year, the process is yet to gain momentum because of reservations of the returnees. “We are scared of returning to our country, owing to lack of peace in Afghanistan. Every province is ruled by warlords, which is scaring away the refugees from travelling across the border,” a refugee said and added that he would go to Kabul, where the situation was alarming because of lawlessness and high prices. He said the rent of houses  in Kabul was also beyond their reach.

Another refugee said that the people feared that there would be disturbance in Afghanistan if the United States invaded Iraq.

He said the poor refugees, who had no place of their own, would opt for repatriation to receive $20, 150kg of wheat, plastic sheets and soap for a family of six, from the UNHCR.

The refugees who left demolished their mud-houses and took with them the windows, doors and other useful parts.