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QUETTA, July 14: The first batch of Afghan refugees, comprising 52 families from new camps in Balochistan, accepted the UNHCR offer of free ration and left for their homeland on Wednesday.
A statement of the world body issued here claimed that 264 individuals that included 43 families from Mohammadkhel refugee camp and nine from Latifabad camp headed to the border at Chaman in a convoy of eight trucks to resume life in Afghanistan.
The government of Pakistan and UNHCR have agreed that all assistance provided by the international agency, including food, water, education, health and sanitation services will cease by Sept 1.
But the refugees not willing to repatriate would be allowed to stay, the statement said. However, the government does not want them to remain in the areas adjacent to border as provision of services there was difficult, besides security concerns.
Teams, the UNCHR statement said, had begun registering all the refugees in the new camps, who wished to return to Afghanistan, so their smooth departure could be planned. The Afghan families choosing immediate leave will receive two months food ration in Afghanistan.
VETERINARY DOCTORS: Balochistan Unemployed Veterinary Doctors' Association (BUVDA) has said that more than 300 qualified veterinary doctors are jobless in the province.
Speaking at a press conference held here at the press club on Tuesday, representatives of the association Dr Dad Mohammad Mandokhel, Dr Naik Mohammad Marri and Dr Salahuddin Tareen criticized the government for not creating job opportunities for the veterinary doctors and announced that they would burn all their degrees and go on hunger strike if they did not get jobs.
They said that majority of the doctors had qualified in 1991 and they were to the day jobless. They said that on one hand the government was making claims of creating jobs for the unemployed youth of the province, but on the other it had reduced the age limit for government jobs.
