PESHAWAR, May 29: The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees will undertake a process of verification of Afghan refugees in the North Waziristan Agency as the government has announced to close down all camps in the area, officials said. A senior official in the Commissionerate for Afghan Refugees (CAR) said that the government had agreed to allow UN agency’s workers to visit the tribal region to conduct a verification campaign before closing down the camps.

About 52,000 Afghans are still residing in various camps in the agency and some Afghan elders had refused to leave, owing to insecurity and lack of job opportunities in Afghanistan.

A meeting in this regard was held here on Saturday which was attended by officials of CAR, Ministry of State and Frontier Region and representatives of the UN refugee agency.

It was decided that UN workers would begin verification campaign in the camps in the North Waziristan Agency in June and would be completed by the end of month.

The political authorities would be directed to provide security cover to UN workers.

Earlier, the government refused to allow workers of the UN agency to visit the agency because of the security situation in the area.

The federal government had announced to close down all refugee camps in the agency along the Afghan border.

The inhabitants of the camps would be offered the choice of voluntary repatriation or relocation to other place in Pakistan.