March 30, 2007	Friday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 10, 1428

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PESHAWAR, March 29: Afghan elders have decided not to vacate the Kacha Garhi and Jalozai refugee camps this year and instead have sought a three-year extension in the cut-off date for closing them down.

“Let the government of Pakistan throw our women and children in river Kabul but at no cost will we go back to Afghanistan,” a jirga of the two refugee camps told Sardar Yar Mohammad Rind, federal Minister for State and Frontier Region (Safron), here on Thursday.

The government has decided to wind up four camps — two each in the NWFP and Balochistan. The evacuation plan is supposed to be initiated from the Kacha Garhi camp in Peshawar from April 16. The four camps are supposed to be closed by September.

The elders were of the view that the situation in Afghanistan was extremely grim and civilians were being killed there, while there was no shelter, education, health facilities and employment opportunities in the war-ravaged country.

“The Pakistani government should not throw our children in the fire and extend the deadline by three years,” said Haji Dost Mohammad, head of the Shura of the Kacha Garhi camp.

He said that President Hamid Karzai, his cabinet members and even members of the Afghan parliament were not safe in Afghanistan.

Qazi Assad, an elder of the Jalozai camp, Nowshera district, said that Pakistan should review its decision on humanitarian grounds and not force inhabitants of the two camps to return to Afghanistan.

He said the security situation across the border was not satisfactory and it might deteriorate further within the next few months.

Speaking at the jirga, Federal Minister Yar Mohammad Rind said the government was closing these refugee camps due to certain compulsions because the Afghan government and other foreign powers had reservations regarding the camps.

He said the government would not give further extension and would be closing down the camps this year.

He said: “This is enough. The government will not give relaxation any more and we request refugees to understand Pakistan’s compulsions.”

However, he said, refugees would not be forced to repatriate to their homeland and the government would provide a site at Dir and Chitral districts to relocate inhabitants of Kacha Garhi and Jalozai camps to these areas if any of them did not want repatriation.

He said that the Afghan government had committed to establish 50 towns in various provinces to address the refugees’ problems.

He urged refugees to take part in the reconstruction of their country.