ISLAMABAD, Nov 21: The UN agency for refugees has planned to conduct a random survey of registered Afghans in Pakistan to cross-check the information collected during their registration, a spokesman for the agency told this reporter.

During the survey, the agency will approach 1,500 selected Afghan families, registered with the UNHCR, to verify the provided information and to ask more targeted questions to improve the quality of the data.

It may be mentioned that about 2.15 million Afghan refugees are still living in Pakistan. All of them have Proof of Registration Cards. So far, as many as 3.22 million refugees have returned to Afghanistan facilitated by the UNHCR. About 355,000 were repatriated this year alone. The repatriation process has been suspended for the time being due to the onset of winter season and will be restarted in March.

It has been learnt that there are thousands of unregistered Afghans living in Pakistan. But the UNHCR says it has no concern for these refugees because their stay is considered illegal by both the government of Pakistan as well as the refugee agency.

A team of 28 interviewers has been constituted for the verification survey. A UNHCR’s partner agency, SHARP is also collaborating in the survey. The teams will first ask for details on the registration cards, and based on that, will return with a printout of the family’s information collected during registration. They will then conduct interviews to check if the information is accurate, and ask more questions related to special needs and livelihoods.

The survey is not linked to any special services or status for the families interviewed.

The UNHCR has also explained that the exercise is free of charge. Anyone asking for money must be reported to UNHCR immediately, he added.

The survey will be completed till the end of this month. A general survey of this kind will also be conducted in 2008 and 2009 in order to gather more information to help UNHCR and the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan to plan for the future of registered Afghans in the country.