25 April 2004	Sunday	04 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1425

PESHAWAR, April 24: Afghan refugees, who intend to return home from a camp in the Kurram Agency after a UN-sponsored group repatriation programme gets underway, are forced to chose between one set of problems between a set of problems over another.

"For 20 years, we lived (at the Kurram Agency's Naryab Camp), without basic facilities and ... Now we are going somewhere, where conditions may not be much different," says Sultan Zari, a 60-year-old Afghan widowed woman.

More than 300 Afghan refugee families left for Afghanistan on Thursday and Friday in the first convoy under the Facilitated Group Repatriation Programme 2004 of the UNHCR.

Most of the refugees belonged to Mangel, Tootakhel, Zazi and Ahmed Khel Afghan tribes from the Paktia province.

"We left Afghanistan because of the war. We had nothing when we came here 20 years ago," Gul Pari, a 30-year-old Afghan widow, told this correspondent in the Naryab Camp. She also criticized what she termed inhuman conditions she had to face in the refugee camp.

Marina, another Afghan refugee, who spent 20 years of her life in the Naryab camp, said that she felt mentally and physically exhausted and had no sense of belonging in Pakistan or Afghanistan.

Depressed at the prospect of leaving the refugee camp, where she said: "We were not happy here in the camp. We left our country because of the fighting there. Now they (Pakistani government) are not letting us live in peace."

A UNHCR official at the Naryab camp told this correspondent that Pakistan government had asked the refugees to vacate the camp because of the ongoing work on the Naryab dam, adding that the UN refugee agency had come forward to help them (refugees) resettle in their homeland instead of shifting them to another camp.

"These refugees are going of their own free will and UNHCR will help them in every possible way. They (refugees) will be given an adequate amount to cover their travel and food expenses. They will also be given financial assistance to set up houses in their country", another UNHCR official said. Refugees at the camp complained about outlaws who looted refugees of whatever little belongings they had.

"We guard our houses at night out of fear of being looted. We do not feel secure here at all. It is a tribal area with no recourse to the law. We are on our own, guarding whatever belongings we have, our livestock and honour, too," refugees said.

Shehnaz Parveen, associate repatriation officer working at the UNHCR's Peshawar sub-office said that every refugee was being given $10 in addition to $8 given for food and $5 for dismantling their houses. "The repatriation programme was started in 2004 and we have introduced a new concept: If any family wants to go to Afghanistan voluntarily, we will help them," she said.

"Some are reluctant to go back because they fear facing problems ... We (UNHCR) plan to remove these problems, enabling them to go back home."

The first convoy under the refugee repatriation programme has already left the camp.

"We are in touch with elders in various Afghan provinces, who have assured refugees living in the camps of their safe return home. They are constituting 'Shooras' to ensure peace there," she said.