Afghan Refugees

[Neo]

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Afghan Refugees
Friday May 18, 2007


Farzana Shah
[email protected]

The government of Pakistan has decided to repatriate all the Afghan refugees in three years by the end of 2009. However, looking at the political situation in Afghanistan and other problems at this side of the border it seems a task difficult to accomplish. On the other hand Iran has already started extraditing about a million Afghan refugees from her soil by force and announced to complete the entire repatriation by March 2008. This has caused much concern to the Afghan government as it is beyond it to rehabilitate them all in the given time frame.

If compared the two host countries and the pattern of handling the refugees by each, it comes to the fore that Pakistan made many mistakes that have led to the emergence of many problems for her. After the Soviet invasion of 1979 Pakistan had to face a great influx of the Afghan refugees as millions of them crossed over to Pakistan. They were not only welcomed with open arms on grounds of Islamic brotherhood and the Pukhtoon ethnicity but they were also not properly accounted for and documented. It was so due to their pouring in incessantly in huge numbers and the absence of proper infrastructure to keep their records. They were allowed to spread all over Pakistan with their main concentrations in the provinces of NWFP and Baluchistan. Some of them not only brought their cattle with them but also their vehicles, some as large as 16 and 18 wheelers. They took their cattle to the sprawling grazing pastures and the vehicles soon started plying all over Pakistan. Since their was no check on their movement it was quite common for most of them to have three of four Identity Cards issued from different districts of Pakistan. It was only with the introduction of the Machine Readable ID cards that some count of theirs could be made and things started looking more manageable.

In Iran it was different from the very beginning. Each refugee was issued with an ID card and registered properly. They were restricted to the camps only and proper birth and death records maintained. They were not allowed to indulge in the business or trade. Hence she is not facing much problems in repatriating the properly accounted for refugees as compared to Pakistan.

It was only in 2005 that the Pak government in collaboration with UNHCR started the census of the Afghan refugees in Pakistan and according to that census their number was 3.049.000 (over 3 million). About 2.6 million refugees have reportedly returned to Afghanistan from 2002 to 2005 under the UNHCR voluntary repatriation programme and from March till now over 0.8 million more had returned to their homeland. However, most of the refugees repatriated return to Pakistan either by bribing the security personnel at Pak-Afghan border or by using other points of entry at the porous border.According to the UNCHR website about 1.5 million refugees went back to Afghanistan in the 90s but 2/3rd of them came back. Keeping such a ratio of the returnees in view one can imagine the number that would have returned back by now.

Though NADRA claims to have registered most of the Afghan refugees and issued Afghan origin card to them but it is also a fact that most of those who want to go back are yet to be registered. There is also the possibility of many of them having obtained not only fake Pakistani Computerized National Identity Cards but also fake Afghan origin cards. Just a month back while travelling from Peshawar to Mansehra an Afghan refugee onboard showed me a fake Afghan origin card, which he disclosed to have obtained from Bara. He boasted challengingly that no system could prove it to be a fake! Though voluntarily repatriating refugees under the UNHCR programme went through the iris test but all those illegal returnees until put through the same test can not be caught, and it is not possible to put each one of them through the iris test till the scanners are installed at all such points of entry.

The number of those who daily cross over at only two crossing points of Chaman and Torkham is stated to be about 30,000. This added to the number of those crossing the porous border points could make the figure go much higher. The growth factor should also be taken into consideration, as according to the UNDP the growth index for the Afghan refugees in Pakistan is 3 per cent per annum. Such a situation is not favourable for them in Afghanistan due to security reasons coupled with scant employment opportunities. The number of Pashtuns refugees is much higher than those of Persian speaking and it is these Pashto speaking refugees who face the economic problems more as compared to the later. Most of them are daily wages earners or have small shops. Most of them do not have the means or the facilities for the education of their children except a few, like those engaged in the transport business or other trade related activities. They prefer to stay in Pakistan as they can earn two-square meals a day here easily as compared to Afghanistan.

On the other hand most of the Persian-speaking refugees have some good businesses as one can notice easily the expensive boutiques on Arbab Road Peshawar run by them. Their children have also access to good English medium high class educational institutes due to their better economic condition.

Sending back such a large number of refugees who have got accustomed to better living environs as compared to the existing conditions in Afghanistan is not an easy task. Majority of the returned refugees converge on the big cities like Kabul, Kundus and Nigarhar only where they have some access to the employment, shelter and civic facilities akin to those found in of Pakistan. Another big impeding factor to their return is the security situation obtaining in Afghanistan. Conditions beyond Kabul are worse. No city alone, however big in size, can absorb the influx beyond its capacity. Hence the refugees have a scant hope of the good life there, which adds to their reluctance to go back.

The Pakistan economy especially that of NWFP and Baluchistan already over-burdened on account of these refugees demands for their early return. The present problem mostly confined to only two provinces is likely to trickle down to far-off villages and cities of Punjab and Sindh also. On the other hand the Afghan government isn’t ready to take them back as it has `already protested to Iran over forced repatriation of refugees and Afghan parliament has sacked Refugees Affairs Minister Akbar Akbar over the issue while no-confidence vote for Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta was hanging on a single spoilt ballot.

There are also fears that what if UNHCR abandoned the assistance to Pakistan just as it did in 1995-97 and it was only after 2001 that it took up the refugees task again. There are also talks of Refugees Management which means Pakistan has to handle them from own resources which is unlikely in a situation where her own citizens are without basic amenities of life.

There is yet another dimension to this issue; analysts believe that Iran is repatriating Afghan refugees forcibly to put pressure on US. It is understandable that most of these refugees in Iran would be from Persian-speaking North and US doesn’t want any Iranian influence in Afghanistan. Pakistan, too, could also face objections from US and its allied forces if she repatriated the refugees forcibly mostly the Pashto speaking as Pashtuns are considered to be resisting the NATO forces in Afghanistan. It is, therefore, time that the Government of Pakistan realized its mistakes which it made by not checking all the loop-holes and giving a free hand to the refugees for buying the properties and spreading to every nook and corner of the country. Government should not only keep proper record of these refugees, but also probe the purchase of property by them along with devising a mechanism to send them back to Afghanistan in a phased programme over the next years. It is also the responsibility of the Afghan government to take their nationals back for their betterment because the coming generation might find the livelihood while being here as refugees but may be denied proper education and health facilities as expatriates.

http://www.paktribune.com/news/index.shtml?178548

[Neo]

Good read Jana Jee...

[WebMaster]

20,000 Afghan refugees re-enter into Pak
Sunday May 20, 2007 (0238 PST)
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PESHAWAR: At least twenty thousand Afghan refugees re-entered into Pakistan territory due to the relaxation in strict border security at Torkham after the Peshawar blast here on Friday.
Sources told Online that Provincial government had demanded from the Federal government to increase the security at all the entrances including Torkham gate soon after the suicide bomb blast in a local hotel near Naz Cinema in Peshawar.

The stringent security measures adopted by the government continued for three days. However when on Friday, the security was relaxed at gate, about 20000 Afghan refugees again slipped into Pakistan territory.

Sources further told thousands Afghan used to enter into Pakistan soil via Mohmand Agency and other Tribal Agencies. It is further said that Political administration has failed to stop entrance of these Afghan refugees.

Provincial government had informed the center that several miscreants moved into Pakistan specially NWFP for negative activities due to the less security at border which adversely affected the law and order situation in NWFP.

However, later on Provincial government has advised the Peshawar Police to arrest all those Afghans who are residing in rural areas of Peshawar without any identity card and deport them to Afghanistan immediately.

http://www.paktribune.com/news/index.shtml?178693

[Neo]

Monday, May 21, 2007

Balochistan remains home to more than 100,000 refugees

QUETTA: Seventeen thousand, one hundred and fifty-one Afghan refugees, sheltering in the well known Jungle Pir Alizai refugee camp in Qila Abdullah, a district of Balochistan, have not registered with the Pakistani government and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Currently, there are 113,655 unregistered Afghan refugees in Balochistan.

Skirmishes between Afghan refugees and Pakistani security forces broke out last week in the refugee camp at Qila Abdullah, killing four people. Where have 17,152 refugees gone from Jungle Pir Alizai since those clashes?

The Government of Pakistan and the UNHCR signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on December 17, 2004 to carry out a detailed census of the Afghan refugees living in Pakistan since December 1, 1979. The criteria fixed for registration made it mandatory for the Afghans to register in the presence of their family heads and from the district where they had been counted in the census.

The six-million-dollar census, conducted in February and March 2005, counted 3.04 million Afghans living in Pakistan, out of which 769,268 (25.2 percent of the Afghan refugees living in Pakistan) were found to be living in Balochistan.

According to the census, the number of refugees taking shelter in Jungle Pir Alizai, located 63 kilometers away from Balochistan’s capital of Quetta, was as high as 35,000. However, when the government and the UNHCR decided to register Afghan refugees living in Balochistan, as they had done in other parts of the country, a sharp decline was witnessed in the number of refugees. The registration process, which began on October 15, 2006 and went on till February 12, 2007, counted only 17,848 people in a camp of 2,569 households.

Daily Times spoke to an official of the UNHCR to ask why enough Afghans had not turned up for the registration process. “Many of them had gone to Iran, Afghanistan, the UAE or to other countries for business. Interestingly, others had gone to Saudi Arabia to perform Hajj,� said the official.

Who granted permission to these Afghan refugees to move out of Pakistan? Who gave them valid traveling documents? How had they managed to obtain fake national identity cards (NICs) and Pakistani passports? “You had better put these questions to the government,� said another UNHCR official. “Obviously, some government department is overtly or covertly involved in this fraud.�

When Daily Times contacted government officials, none from the Balochistan Government, including the Home and Tribal Department and the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA), had answers.

The total number of refugee camps in Balochistan is 12, of which two camps, Jungle Pir Alizai and Girdi Jungle are still in place despite the government’s decision to close them down by June 20, 2005. The other ten camps are Posti, Lejay Karez, Chaghi, Malgagai, Katwai, Gahzgai Minara, Zar Karez, Surkhab, Saranan and Mohammad Kheil. According to the census of 2005, the total number of refugees in all these camps was 231,960. The registration process, however, only recorded 118,305 people. Duniya Aslam Khan, media officer of the UNHCR’s Balochistan programme, told Daily Times that her organisation established and closed refugee camps while considering the plight of the refugees. “The UNHCR moves to the people’s aid if they are in bad conditions, but camps are shut down as soon as the situation is normal,� she said.

Refugees living in these camps were given two options. They either voluntarily agree to be repatriated to Afghanistan, in return for which, the UNHCR would provide them US$ 1,000 per individual and free transportation facilities, or they should consent to be relocated to Mohammad Kheil camp (in 2005-2006) and now in Gahzgai Minara camp.

Refugee elders and some nationalist political parties resisted the government’s move to close these camps. They demanded that the official deadline be extended, as leaving the camps overnight was not possible for them. After all, they argued, they had been living in these camps for the past thirty years.

The government extended the deadline for Jungle Pir Alizai camp thrice, from June 2005 to July 31, 2005, from then to April 30, 2006 and then June 2006 were fixed as deadlines but to no avail. “The recent clash between the security forces and the Afghan refugees indicates that the task of eliminating these camps is not a bed of roses for the government,� stated an observer.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default...-5-2007_pg7_18

[PakSniper]

JANA's report in first post

[Neo]

Didn't you read the second one?

[niaz]

Didn't you read the second one?

For some reason I am very anti Afghan refugees. IMO most of the drug culture, Klashikov culture and Talibanism is the repayment by Afghans who were offered sanctuary in Pakistan. Also most of the Afghans I came across in the UK are very anti Pakistan which I find irritating to the utmost.

Therefore, I would like all Afghans to be kicked out of Pakistan and sooner the better. I am sure crime rate will drop by 50% as a result.
Pakistan was made for the muslims of British India and not for the ungrateful Afghans.

[Neo]

For some reason I am very anti Afghan refugees. IMO most of the drug culture, Klashikov culture and Talibanism is the repayment by Afghans who were offered sanctuary in Pakistan. Also most of the Afghans I came across in the UK are very anti Pakistan which I find irritating to the utmost.

Therefore, I would like all Afghans to be kicked out of Pakistan and sooner the better. I am sure crime rate will drop by 50% as a result.
Pakistan was made for the muslims of British India and not for the ungrateful Afghans.

We have something in comon Sir.
I do believe that we did the right thing by showing solidarity and hospitality when their country was invaded but we've done more than our share, its time to send them back.
Afghanistan has new and more powerful allies now, let them come to help.

[Wounded Healer]

We have something in comon Sir.
I do believe that we did the right thing by showing solidarity and hospitality when their country was invaded but we've done more than our share, its time to send them back.
Afghanistan has new and more powerful allies now, let them come to help.

that makes three of us..................but i believe we should have done it like the iranians did...........now the afghans have embeded themselves into our society....................our country has done alot for them and even then all we get is hatred in return..............its time for them to leave and only when they r gone can we live in peace.

[Spring Onion]

Afghan Refugees
Friday May 18, 2007


Farzana Shah
[email protected]

The government of Pakistan has decided to repatriate all the Afghan refugees in three years by the end of 2009. However, looking at the political situation in Afghanistan and other problems at this side of the border it seems a task difficult to accomplish. On the other hand Iran has already started extraditing about a million Afghan refugees from her soil by force and announced to complete the entire repatriation by March 2008. This has caused much concern to the Afghan government as it is beyond it to rehabilitate them all in the given time frame.

If compared the two host countries and the pattern of handling the refugees by each, it comes to the fore that Pakistan made many mistakes that have led to the emergence of many problems for her. After the Soviet invasion of 1979 Pakistan had to face a great influx of the Afghan refugees as millions of them crossed over to Pakistan. They were not only welcomed with open arms on grounds of Islamic brotherhood and the Pukhtoon ethnicity but they were also not properly accounted for and documented. It was so due to their pouring in incessantly in huge numbers and the absence of proper infrastructure to keep their records. They were allowed to spread all over Pakistan with their main concentrations in the provinces of NWFP and Baluchistan. Some of them not only brought their cattle with them but also their vehicles, some as large as 16 and 18 wheelers. They took their cattle to the sprawling grazing pastures and the vehicles soon started plying all over Pakistan. Since their was no check on their movement it was quite common for most of them to have three of four Identity Cards issued from different districts of Pakistan. It was only with the introduction of the Machine Readable ID cards that some count of theirs could be made and things started looking more manageable.

In Iran it was different from the very beginning. Each refugee was issued with an ID card and registered properly. They were restricted to the camps only and proper birth and death records maintained. They were not allowed to indulge in the business or trade. Hence she is not facing much problems in repatriating the properly accounted for refugees as compared to Pakistan.

It was only in 2005 that the Pak government in collaboration with UNHCR started the census of the Afghan refugees in Pakistan and according to that census their number was 3.049.000 (over 3 million). About 2.6 million refugees have reportedly returned to Afghanistan from 2002 to 2005 under the UNHCR voluntary repatriation programme and from March till now over 0.8 million more had returned to their homeland. However, most of the refugees repatriated return to Pakistan either by bribing the security personnel at Pak-Afghan border or by using other points of entry at the porous border.According to the UNCHR website about 1.5 million refugees went back to Afghanistan in the 90s but 2/3rd of them came back. Keeping such a ratio of the returnees in view one can imagine the number that would have returned back by now.

Though NADRA claims to have registered most of the Afghan refugees and issued Afghan origin card to them but it is also a fact that most of those who want to go back are yet to be registered. There is also the possibility of many of them having obtained not only fake Pakistani Computerized National Identity Cards but also fake Afghan origin cards. Just a month back while travelling from Peshawar to Mansehra an Afghan refugee onboard showed me a fake Afghan origin card, which he disclosed to have obtained from Bara. He boasted challengingly that no system could prove it to be a fake! Though voluntarily repatriating refugees under the UNHCR programme went through the iris test but all those illegal returnees until put through the same test can not be caught, and it is not possible to put each one of them through the iris test till the scanners are installed at all such points of entry.

The number of those who daily cross over at only two crossing points of Chaman and Torkham is stated to be about 30,000. This added to the number of those crossing the porous border points could make the figure go much higher. The growth factor should also be taken into consideration, as according to the UNDP the growth index for the Afghan refugees in Pakistan is 3 per cent per annum. Such a situation is not favourable for them in Afghanistan due to security reasons coupled with scant employment opportunities. The number of Pashtuns refugees is much higher than those of Persian speaking and it is these Pashto speaking refugees who face the economic problems more as compared to the later. Most of them are daily wages earners or have small shops. Most of them do not have the means or the facilities for the education of their children except a few, like those engaged in the transport business or other trade related activities. They prefer to stay in Pakistan as they can earn two-square meals a day here easily as compared to Afghanistan.

On the other hand most of the Persian-speaking refugees have some good businesses as one can notice easily the expensive boutiques on Arbab Road Peshawar run by them. Their children have also access to good English medium high class educational institutes due to their better economic condition.

Sending back such a large number of refugees who have got accustomed to better living environs as compared to the existing conditions in Afghanistan is not an easy task. Majority of the returned refugees converge on the big cities like Kabul, Kundus and Nigarhar only where they have some access to the employment, shelter and civic facilities akin to those found in of Pakistan. Another big impeding factor to their return is the security situation obtaining in Afghanistan. Conditions beyond Kabul are worse. No city alone, however big in size, can absorb the influx beyond its capacity. Hence the refugees have a scant hope of the good life there, which adds to their reluctance to go back.

The Pakistan economy especially that of NWFP and Baluchistan already over-burdened on account of these refugees demands for their early return. The present problem mostly confined to only two provinces is likely to trickle down to far-off villages and cities of Punjab and Sindh also. On the other hand the Afghan government isn’t ready to take them back as it has `already protested to Iran over forced repatriation of refugees and Afghan parliament has sacked Refugees Affairs Minister Akbar Akbar over the issue while no-confidence vote for Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta was hanging on a single spoilt ballot.

There are also fears that what if UNHCR abandoned the assistance to Pakistan just as it did in 1995-97 and it was only after 2001 that it took up the refugees task again. There are also talks of Refugees Management which means Pakistan has to handle them from own resources which is unlikely in a situation where her own citizens are without basic amenities of life.

There is yet another dimension to this issue; analysts believe that Iran is repatriating Afghan refugees forcibly to put pressure on US. It is understandable that most of these refugees in Iran would be from Persian-speaking North and US doesn’t want any Iranian influence in Afghanistan. Pakistan, too, could also face objections from US and its allied forces if she repatriated the refugees forcibly mostly the Pashto speaking as Pashtuns are considered to be resisting the NATO forces in Afghanistan. It is, therefore, time that the Government of Pakistan realized its mistakes which it made by not checking all the loop-holes and giving a free hand to the refugees for buying the properties and spreading to every nook and corner of the country. Government should not only keep proper record of these refugees, but also probe the purchase of property by them along with devising a mechanism to send them back to Afghanistan in a phased programme over the next years. It is also the responsibility of the Afghan government to take their nationals back for their betterment because the coming generation might find the livelihood while being here as refugees but may be denied proper education and health facilities as expatriates.

Pakistan News Service - PakTribune

lolz
Neo Someone just told me about this article which you had posted here

i never knew it was on PFF too.
glad to see it here.
BTW we still have this problem.
i had conducted a survery and due to these refugees smuggling at Torkham border had witnesses sharp rise.

[Neo]

I've posted most of your articles here dear.

[Spring Onion]

i never knew
Thank you

[roadrunner]

For some reason I am very anti Afghan refugees. IMO most of the drug culture, Klashikov culture and Talibanism is the repayment by Afghans who were offered sanctuary in Pakistan. Also most of the Afghans I came across in the UK are very anti Pakistan which I find irritating to the utmost.

Therefore, I would like all Afghans to be kicked out of Pakistan and sooner the better. I am sure crime rate will drop by 50% as a result.
Pakistan was made for the muslims of British India and not for the ungrateful Afghans.

Hmm, interesting comments. To be honest, you need to define what you mean by Afghan here. Also you can't paint a picture of Afghans using the internet. There are Pakhtun nationalists in Afghanistan who do harbour anti Pakistan feelings. They are not a majority IMO. In the UK, are you referring to Afghan Pashtuns? To be honest, there's so few you could never make a conclusion. Those that generally moved to America and became taxi drivers tended to be from the Tajik Afghan community. I've not really met that many Afghans that have been anti Pak, though I have met some dopey western ones that have thought it to be cool to be anti Pak because their hormones are out of control and they're anti everything.

There are reports of Afghan refugees who have made very positive comments towards Pakistan, so i would not draw comparisons between the overseas diaspora (who are predominatly Tajik anyway), and the Afghan refugees in Pakistan (who are predominantly Pashtun). It's a complicated ethnically mixed country and you certainly cannot generalize in the way you're doing.

[roadrunner]

We have something in comon Sir.
I do believe that we did the right thing by showing solidarity and hospitality when their country was invaded but we've done more than our share, its time to send them back.
Afghanistan has new and more powerful allies now, let them come to help.

I have a q for you on this . Do you think Afghanistan would have been better off under something like the Soviet Union, or as now?

[Spring Onion]

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I have a q for you on this . Do you think Afghanistan would have been better off under something like the Soviet Union, or as now?

roadrunner it would have not been better either way.
First of all it is/wasnt likely to be under Soviet Union with US at work for even disentigration of the former Union.
secondly other parties to the conflict are should also be taken into consideration.

And look at the presnt situation there with the main party the majority Pashtuns are not part of the government currently there and US can not carrying on imposing the Northern Alliance for long, the signs of which are already been witnessed with Karzai's recent statment to invite Pashtuns for dialogue and in the coming period they are indeed deemed to be taken onboared with TAP and other such energey projects in the offing by US.