QUETTA, July 29: Federal Minister for States and Frontier Region Sardar Yar Mohammad Rind has said that four camps of Afghan refugees in Balochistan and the NWFP will be closed by the set deadline.

Addressing a press conference here on Sunday, he said the deadline for the camps’ closure had already been announced and all refugees would be sent to their country by December 30, 2009.

“The refugee camps, including the Jungle Pir Alizai in Qila Abdullah district, will be definitely closed,” he said.

He said that due to involvement of local politicians in the Jungle Pir Alizai camp issue, the government was holding talks with leaders and elders of the area to work out ways for its peaceful closure.

“We do not want to send them back by force because they have been our guests for 25 years,” Sardar Rind said adding that the government wanted their honourable repatriation.

He expressed the hope that the Balochistan government would extend its cooperation in closing the two camps as did the NWFP government.

Replying to a question, he said the refugees who did not get registered had been declared illegal immigrants.

He said that there were 300,000 Afghan refugees in the country who did not possess ‘proof of registration’ while 205,000 had been repatriated since the completion of the registration process.

He said that the property and documents of illegal Afghan immigrants would be confiscated as being foreigner they have no right to buy property.

He said the government had asked the unregistered refugees to return to their country under the UNHCR voluntary repatriation programme.

He said that so far $15 million, including the $5 million share of the Pakistan government, had been spent in this regard.

Replying to a question, the federal minister said that at present 2.1 million Afghan refugees were living in the country and a majority of them were in the NWFP.