PESHAWAR, Sept 29: The government has chalked out a tentative programme to wind up Afghan refugee camps in NWFP and the adjacent tribal areas by March 2004, official sources said.

According to the plan, formulated by the ministry of state and frontier regions (Safron), around 48 registered refugee camps in NWFP and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas are likely to be closed during this period.

A source in the concerned ministry said that in the first phase the refugee camps located around urban centres would be wound up, while in the second phase, the settlements in the tribal areas would be closed down.

The Nasir Bagh refugee camp and New Jalozai makeshift camp have already been closed, while some 90,000 inmates of Kacha Garhi camp in the suburbs of Peshawar, who were served notices by the commissionerate for Afghan refugees to vacate the site by March 2003, have started shifting to Afghanistan or other camps.

The commissionerate officials confirmed that the inhabitants of Old Jalozai camp and Shamshato camp — two thickly-populated refugee settlements in the south-east of Peshawar — had been asked to leave the premises.

The authorities have given two options to the refugees, either to go back to their country under the UN repatriation plan or shift to places of their own choice in the province or Fata.

An official said that the government did not see any hurdle after the evacuation of settlers from Nasir Bagh, Jalozai and Kacha Garhi camps.

However, a source in the provincial home and tribal affairs department said that the secret agencies’ record showed that the Kacha Garhi and Old Jalozai camps had become hideouts and dens of car-lifters, criminals and robbers.

“The second choice carries a potential risk as the anti-social and criminal elements would get scattered if they are given a chance to go to a place of their choice,” the source said.

The officials said that the government was optimistic that in view of the massive voluntary repatriation carried out this year, the refugee population would leave the sites on their own, without making any hurdles in clearing the camps.

The sources said that the international community was not very curious about the state of refugees in Pakistan and after political developments the European and Middle East-based relief agencies had shifted their activities inside Afghanistan to rehabilitate internally displaced people.

United Nations High Commission for Refugees said that so far 1,530,146 Afghan refugees had returned to their country under the current voluntary repatriation programme. Over 900,000 returnees had registered themselves at Takhta Baig, Khyber Agency for voluntary repatriation and crossed into their country via Torkham checkpost.

Officials said that the number of returnees had slowed down due to coming winter and roughly 250 families were being registered at Takhta Baig daily. They said that the UN refugee agency was likely to close Takhta Baig centre in coming weeks and set up a verification centre at Torkham border point to facilitate the returnees.