PESHAWAR, Jan 31: Fences would be erected around all the newly-established Afghan refugee camps in the Federally- Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) to check infiltration of new refugees into the settled parts of the country.

The government has taken this decision for the first time in 23 years of war in Afghanistan to restrict the movement of the refugees in order to avoid further pressure on the already over-populated urban centres and backward rural parts of the NWFP.

A UNHCR Senior Emergency Coordinator Mohammad Adar told newsmen here on Thursday that the government was fencing the camps for security reasons though the refugee agency considered the move against its mandate.

He said the United Nations High Commission for Refugees was cooperating with the Pakistan government in erecting fences around the camps. “This is Pakistan government policy to fence the camps. Though the refugees have the right to move outside the camps, but the action has been taken on the government request.”

Mr Adar said the NWFP governor demanded that fences be erected around the camps and the UNHCR could not go against the national interest of the host country.

He remarked that the scheme to erect fences would be quite expensive and no one could stop the movement of the refugees through erecting fences around the camps.

The newly-established UNHCR-sponsored refugee camp at Kotkai of the Bajaur Agency would be the first camp around which fences would be erected to ensure that the inmates do not sneak into the settled areas of the province — already housing over two million refugees for well over two decades.

During a visit to the Kotkai refugee camp, the officials concerned told Dawn that the fencing of the camps would cost over Rs560 million. They said that after the Kotkai camp, the government would fence seven other camps in Khyber and Kurram agencies.

The refugees, living at the Kotkai camp, complained that security guards did not allow them to move outside the camp.