PESHAWAR, Oct 24: The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has offered an enhanced package to those Afghan refugees, who want to return to their country under the voluntary repatriation programme.
A press release issued here on Wednesday said that every registered Afghan refugee family, voluntarily returning from Pakistan to Afghanistan during the remainder of 2012, would be offered an enhanced return package.
The package includes various types of non-food items including blankets, quilts, plastic sheets and a number of other items.
Those items were being distributed among the returning families at Chamkani, Timergara and Baleli voluntary repatriation centres (VRC) in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan respectively, the release added.
The UN agency said that returning refugee families would also be offered one-time free transport facility from the VRCs to the encashment centres in Afghanistan.The enhanced package for voluntary returns would be provided only till December 2012, however, the voluntary repatriation operation would continue after 2012. The press release said that cash assistance worth $150 was also being reviewed and would be continued.
Officials said that around 62,000 registered Afghans, majority of them from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, had returned to their country under the voluntary repatriation programme since January 2012. Last year 52,000 Afghans had gone back from Pakistan. The UN agency has decided that repatriation process from Pakistan would not be stopped for winter in order to send more and more Afghans to their homeland.
About 1.7 million registered Afghan refugees are residing in Pakistan. These refugees are likely to lose their legal status if federal government doesn’t extend their stay. The Peshawar High Court has already directed the government not to extend stay of legal Afghans beyond December 2012.
Sources said that federal government had yet to make any decision to extend the stay of registered refugees while Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government had ordered undocumented Afghans in May last to leave the province. Police have been empowered to arrest and deport illegal Afghans.
Meanwhile, voluntary repatriation programme is being suspended in Pakistan and Afghanistan from Thursday till Monday next for Eid holidays. The statement said that VRCs would remain closed. — Bureau Report