PESHAWAR: The district administration on Friday evicted around 90 Afghan families from an unregistered refugee camp on Pajjagi Road in Jabba Jheel area.

The evicted families had been living in the camp since 2002.

The relevant officials said the land where the camp was set up belonged to the army and that despite being given repeated notices, Afghan nationals were reluctant to vacate the area.

Some families were unregistered.

The district administration backed by police carried out operation in the camp.

A statement issued here said staff of the Afghan Commissionerate, police and civic bodies jointly conducted the operation.

The statement said around 700 houses and structures were demolished and 500 kanals of land worth billion of rupees were recovered.

Unregistered refugees living in camp since 2002 sent home

It said the land would formally be handed over to the army after demarcation.

Afghan refugees loaded their belongings on trucks and pickups and moved to different locations.

A relevant official said registered Afghans were allowed to move to other registered camps, while undocumented Afghan nationals were sent home.

He said the relevant authorities had been serving notices on the camp’s dwellers since 2002, but to no avail.

An elder of the camp complained that the administration began the crackdown without serving prior notices on the residents.

He claimed around 500 families lived in the camp.

The authorities have already launched a campaign against unregistered Afghans in Peshawar and other parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Around 30,000 Afghan nationals have been sent home since December 2014.

Around 1.5 million registered Afghans nationals having Proof of Registration cards could stay in Pakistan by December 2015, while approximately two million Afghans have been residing illegally.

The federal government has planned to start registration of undocumented Afghans.

A commission comprising Pakistan, Afghanistan and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees will decide the fate of registered refugees in a meeting scheduled to take place in Kabul in August.

The federal and provincial governments have issued strict directives to the police and other law-enforcement agencies not to arrest or detain PoR cardholders.

However, registered Afghans are detained at security checkposts.

The UNHCR and Afghan government have serious reservations about detention and harassment of registered Afghans by the police.

An official of the UN agency said the police recently arrested 27 registered Afghan nationals, who secured their release after getting legal assistance from the protection cell of the UNHCR.

Published in Dawn, May 2nd, 2015

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