Three Afghan refugees camp in Pakistan to be closed

01 Jun, 2006

UN, Afghan and Pakistani officials meeting in Doha have decided to close three camps for Afghan refugees in Pakistan amid ongoing efforts to help repatriate refugees, officials said on Wednesday.
The Tripartite Commission, which groups Afghanistan, Pakistan and the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), also agreed to hold further talks on increasing the repatriation grant for refugees, said a statement issued after the meeting.
"One of the most important decisions was to close the camps of Girdi Jungle and Pir Alizai in Balochistan and Kacha Gari in North West Frontier Province as part of the programme to reorganise Afghan refugees remaining in Pakistan," the UNHCR's external relations chief for the Gulf, Mamun Mohsen, told AFP.
The facilities will be closed in July, he said.
The statement said the commission, which began its 10th meeting in the Qatari capital on Tuesday, also agreed that the closure of Jallozai camp in NWFP would be postponed to 2007 and included within a three-year plan being prepared by the Pakistani government.
It said the three parties acknowledged a decline in the return of refugees compared with the same period in 2005, but "noted that over 65,000 Afghans had already returned from Pakistan this year."
Ekber Menemencioglu, Director of the UNHCR's bureau for Central Asia, Southwest Asia, North Africa and the Middle East, said on Tuesday that 114,000 Afghans had returned home so far this year, including more than 62,000 from Pakistan.
He said the Afghanistan repatriation operation was "unprecedented," resulting in the return of 4.5 million people to their homeland since 2002.
According to figures posted on the UNHCR web site, the 4.5 million returnees include 1.47 million from Iran. There are some 2.55 million Afghan refugees remaining in Pakistan and approximately 960,000 in Iran.

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