The Country head of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), Mengesha Kebede has said that at least 3.7 million Afghan refugees have returned home from Pakistan with the assistance of the UN agency since 2002. Speaking at a meeting regarding management and repatriation strategy of Afghan refugees here in a local hotel on Thursday, he said that voluntary return operation resumed this March after the winter break.
So far, 2,500 individuals have gone back home to Afghanistan. The Provincial Ministers; Arshad Abdullah, Sitara Ayaz, Joint Secretary SAFRON, Provincial Secretaries Information, Home, FATA and representatives of police, Frontier Corp and FIA were also present on this occasion. Khyber Pakhtunhwa Minister for Information, Mian Iftikhar Hussein presided over the meeting.
Mengesha Kebede thanked Pakistani government for hosting millions of Afghan refugees on their soils and extending all kinds of basic facilities to them. He said that UNHCR has mobilised additional support for local communities in Pakistan that generously host millions of Afghan refugees for the last three decades. In this regard, during this year, projects worth nearly 8.5 million dollars of infrastructural development, water and sanitation, health and education, have been initiated through the refugee affected and hosting areas.
Addressing the meeting, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Minister for Information Mian Iftikhar Hussein has urged international donor agencies to consider Afghans as refugees and provide them the facilities of health, education and other basic amenities of life as per international standard, so that they may not become burden on the local economy. He also urged the international donor agencies to mobilise additional support for the local communities in Pakistan especially in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa who generously host millions of Afghan refugees for the last three decades. This would help minimise the problems of illiteracy and militancy in this region.
The minister said that restoration of peace and tranquillity in Peshawar is linked with the peace in Afghanistan and until peace is not restored in Afghanistan, the complete repatriation of Afghan refugees is practically impossible. He said that the people in Afghanistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have common civilisation and culture, therefore, there is need for more simplifying the process of travelling and if possible the old system of Red-pass should be re-introduced.
Addressing on the occasion, Provincial Minister for Law and Parliamentary Affairs, Arshad Abdullah said that if the Afghan refugees wanted to live here, we should think about law to give them legal status and accept them with open heart. Ms Sitara Ayaz said that the provincial government would extend full co-operation to UNHCR in the process of repatriation and data collection of refugees.