KOHAT, Feb 1: The second phase of census and screening of Afghan refugees may have to be an exercise in futility because as the local government has not yet identified aliens who have been living in urban areas and have been issued computerized national identity cards, a senior official of Commissionerate for Afghan Refugees (CAR) told Dawn here on Tuesday.

In view of this problem, an attempt would be made this time to involve Afghan elders for conducting the census and identifying the aliens inside and outside the refugee camps.

This was decided at a meeting held between the CAR representatives and UNHCR team headed by Miss Aneela. Mr Ibraheem Khattak, district administrator of Afghan refugees Kohat, informed that different UNHCR teams were preparing ground for holding census and to send back the refugees back by December 2005.

These teams after conducting surveys of the refugee camps would have to complete the census process in 15 days, he said. Presently, the problem being faced by the government and the UNHCR was that most of the refugees were settled in the urban areas and those residing in the camps may not be present in their homes at the time of the census as most of them worked outside the camps.

According to the rules laid down by the UNHCR only those persons would be counted who are physically present at the time of the census in their respective camps. Moreover, he said, the UNHCR figures of the refugees residing there were between 500,000 to 600,000 in the country, whereas according to CAR, more than four million refugees were still in the country.

He said the UNHCR was relying on the actual figures of the camps, whereas majority of the refugees had shifted to urban areas and established their businesses and remained unaccounted for.

Similarly, the refugees constantly moved between Pakistan and Afghan which is called seasonal migration therefore their population figures varied from time to time. He said that after the suspension of foreign aid feeding and controlling such a large number of refugees had resulted in lawlessness because the government could not provide food or jobs to these aliens.

Similarly, the hospitals were facing problems where more than 40 per cent visitors were refugees. He disclosed that this time the refugees who wanted to go back would be paid stipend according to the distance and not in lump sum as was the case last time.

Answering a question, he said that a small number of the refugees repatriated last time by the UNHCR had again entered Pakistan through legal checkpoints and unfrequented routes but now the number of such people was expected to decrease considerably due to increased economic activity in their homeland and restoration of peace to some extent.

Moreover the UNHCR had been able to construct homes for them inside Afghanistan and as the conditions improved in the war-torn country the refugees themselves would leave Pakistan for their homeland. But it is going to be a slow and long process, Mr Ibraheem remarked.