June 17, 2003	Tuesday	Rabi-us-Sani 16, 1424

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LANDI KOTAL, June 16: At least 150 Afghan refugees’ families would be repatriated to their homeland from the Shalman refugee camp in the Khyber Agency.

Agency administrator for Afghan refugees Humayun Kukikhel told Dawn on Monday that the voluntary repatriation would start on June 17 and hoped that another hundred or so families would be repatriated in near future. This is the first time that refugees are being repatriated from the Shalman camp.

He said all necessary arrangements had been made at the camp to help the return of the refugees. An iris machine, meant for eye-scanning, has also been shifted to the camp. The returning families, after going through scrutiny procedure, would be shifted to Landi Kotal for their onward journey to Afghanistan via the Torkham border.

The camp is currently inhabited by some 2,000 refugee families. It was reported some time back that the United Nations officials in Peshawar were planning shifting the camp to Peshawar due to scarcity of water in the area.

But, Humayun Kukikhel said that the shifting plan was dropped for the time being, expressing the hope that more families would go back to Afghanistan in coming days.