The federal government has decided to start temporary registration of Afghan refugees before formulating a policy to send them back to their country. The registration would be for six months. A senior official at the Ministry of State and Frontier Regions told Business Recorder on Thursday that different options for registration of the Afghan refugees were under discussion and a final strategy would be finalised in the next couple of weeks.
"At the moment, we are not in a position to send the refugees back to Afghanistan as India and other hostile elements in the region could exploit the situation," he said. The official said the government was planning to take the UNHCR on board as well on the issue as the provincial governments especially Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were pushing the federal government to start repatriation of the Afghan refugees at the earliest.
Pakistan hosts around 1.5 million registered Afghan refugees while the government estimates that there are over two million unregistered Afghan refugees living in different parts of the country. The government has already started repatriation of the refugees with the help of the UNHCR but the process has been very slow as only 16,000 refugees could be repatriated last year.
The official said the government would assign registration of the refugees to National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) as the latter has its offices all over Pakistan. The NADRA has so far issued Proof of Registration (PoR) cards to around 1.6 million Afghan refugees. The official said the government had set up around 29 refugee camps in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where over 900,000 refugees are living.
The government has recently extended Afghan refugees' PoR cards until the end of 2015, issued birth certificates for 800,000 Afghan refugee children, provided land for several refugee villages and given refugees access to public schools and health clinics. The official said the government was in a fix over the issue of registered and unregistered Afghans. The Ministry of State and Frontier Regions has already expressed apprehensions that a tough decision might annoy Kabul at a time when both sides wanted to improve relations and that India could take advantage of the situation.
"Only a few thousand refugees want to go back to their home in Afghanistan as they feel more secure and protected in Pakistan," he said, adding the refugees had also better access to jobs and other facilities in Pakistan. The official said the government was planning to locate some peaceful areas in Afghanistan and then convince the refugees to repatriate them there with help of the UNHCR.
"The UNHCR has been co-operating with the government in repatriation of the refugees but it is against forced eviction of the refugees from Pakistan," he said. The temporary registration of the refugees would help the government compile complete data, he said, and then formulate a policy with help of the UNHCR for their repatriation.