QUETTA, March 16: The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has decided to wind up its aid programme for Afghan refugees in the NWFP and Balochistan as its repatriation campaign continues.
The UNHCR representative in Pakistan, Hasim Utkan, made this announcement, while speaking at a press conference with the government’s commissioner for Afghan refugees, Brig (retd) Mumtaz Ali Raja, here on Saturday.
Mr Utkan feared that if the aid programme for the refugees continued, they would not like to go back to their country. The UNHCR, he said, would launch another programme inside Afghanistan under which aid and other facilities, including job opportunities, would be provided to the people.
“With getting facilities and jobs in their own country, no Afghan would even think to go outside of Afghanistan,” he observed, saying that the UN refugee body had successfully implemented its aid programme for the refugees in Pakistan.
The UNHCR has already launched its repatriation programme in the NWFP under which Afghan refugees have started returning to their country and only in the last 10 days, over 45,000 refugees have gone back to their country.
“One thousand refugees are going back to Afghanistan every day,” Mr Utkan said, adding that the refugees were going back voluntarily.
He said a repatriation programme would be launched in Balochistan and centres would be set up in Quetta and other areas for implementing the programme. A large number of refugees living in different camps in the province were showing a great interest in repatriation and around 100 families had contacted the UNHCR for repatriation to their country.
The first group of around 100 families would leave for their country from Balochistan on next Tuesday for which the UNHCR is making arrangements and soon reporting and registration centres will be established for this propose.
Mr Utkan said the UNHCR would also set up a centre in Karachi, where around 600,000 Afghan refugees were living and majority of them wanted to go back to their country.
Replying to a question, he said the UNHCR had also planned to launch development projects in those areas which had been badly affected by the influx of the refugees. He added that most of the projects were near completion.
Brig Raja said his organization would work hard for the repatriation of the maximum number of refugees and according to a UNHCR plan, 2.3 million refugees would be repatriated in the next three years.
Presently, around 165,000 new refugees are living in seven camps in Balochistan and 80,000 have been relocated at the Mohammad Khal camp in the Panchpai area of the Mastung district, while in the NWFP, the number of new refugees is around 70,000.
The official said the UNHCR was providing them with food, shelter, health care and other facilities.
Replying to a question, he said repatriation of the refugees living in big cities would be given priority.
According to a survey, he added, around 30 per cent refugees living in the camps wanted to go back immediately, while another 30 per cent refugees would like to return after complete peace had been restored in their country.
“Around 40 per cent Afghan refugees living in the cities and running businesses do not want to go back to Afghanistan.”