Yawaz Gul, 42, who hails from the Lughman province of Afghanistan, sits cross-legged on a wooden bench on a footpath in the Saddar bazaar, selling toffees, cigarette packs and chewing gum. He does not like the idea of returning to his country due to a number of factors.
He prefers living here and making a decent life for his seven children. His elder son is 17-year-old and helps his father in making both ends meet.
Like other millions of Afghans, who left their homeland for neighbouring countries in the aftermath of Soviet invasion, he also decided to settle in Pakistan and wait for peace in his country. But even after the lapse of 25 years, insecurity and lack of shelter haunt the displaced people from Afghanistan.
“I did not own a house in my country. How can I find shelter for my seven children, even if I decide to return to Lughman? And how will I be able to feed my family?” he said.
His elder son Liaquat goes to the school in the morning and occupies the same footpath after school hours. He earns from a weight machine to supplement his growing family. The boy charges two rupees from each individual for weighing.
Unlike his father, he looks aggressive and is unwilling to talk as he is reluctant to return to his country.
“Does our presence make any difference to Pakistanis, in case we stay here,” he queried anxiously, when asked if he would like to return to Afghanistan.
Such a question irritates every refugee. The simple reason for this is cited to be unemployment, lake of shelter and insecurity.
The prolonged civil war has left millions of Afghans homeless. Internally displaced and repatriated families have yet to find permanent shelter.
During the Bonn Conference in Germany, held in 2001, the international community pledged to provide assistance to resolve shelter problem in Afghanistan. But many member countries have yet to fulfil their commitments.
Pakistan also announced to provide Rs10 billion in two years for housing sector in Afghanistan. The amount has not been released yet.
UNHCR Public Affairs Assistant Maryam Arzoomand told Dawn that Pakistan recently reiterated its pledge to start releasing the assistance for shelter from 2004. Under the plan, houses would be constructed for displaced people in the southern belt of Afghanistan, bordering Pakistan.
Afghan Women’s Resource Centre Director Partawmina Hashemee considers shelter a major problem due to which Afghans prefer to continue to live in tent-villages in Pakistan.
She said that the size of refugee families had expanded during their stay in Pakistan and they had no resources to build homes in their native land.
An uncounted number of Afghan refugees have still occupied footpaths, streets, markets, business and transport sectors in Peshawar and other urban and semi-urban areas of Pakistan.
The country still hosts 1.2 million Afghan refugees. During the current year, some 340,000 Afghans, including 181,298 individuals from the NWFP, were assisted to return to their homeland.
Statistics are not available about unregistered Afghans in Pakistan. Islamabad and the UNHCR have planned to hold census of the remaining Afghans refugees in Pakistan in 2004 to ascertain the exact number of DPs.
UNHCR officials admit that repatriation programme for Afghans from Pakistan received a setback in the outgoing year due to impending insecurity and non-availability of shelter in their homeland.
The repatriation plan has been suspended following the killing of a UN field worker in Ghazni, southwest of Kabul, on Nov 17.
Initially, it was planned that 600,000 refugees from Pakistan would be repatriated, but after receiving a lukewarm response, the plan was revised.
Commissioner Afghan Refugees Mushtaq Alizai says that refugee camps in the NWFP are still intact and even marked camps could not be wound up.
He is optimistic that the forthcoming presidential elections might be a turning point in the repatriation process, scheduled for next year.
The UN refugee agency has also asked the Afghan Commissionerate to curtail its 20 per cent staff for the next year, particularly relieve about 40 refugee village administrators in the province and the Federally-Administered Tribal Area.
A UN official said that refugee population had reduced while many camps got refugee villages status. On that account, the official said, the UN agency had asked the government to sack the additional staff.