Monday, February 28, 2005
Pakistan starts counting Afghan refugees
ISLAMABAD: Saqib Khan has been living in miserable conditions in Pakistan for the past two decades but he still does not want to go back to his homeland — Afghanistan. “What will I do there?” asked the bearded 50-year-old Afghan when asked why he will not go home. “Here I pull a donkey-cart and earn about Rs 80 a day but in Afghanistan I will not even have this job,” he said as several kids with grubby faces and ragged clothes looked on in a refugee camp on the outskirts of the federal capital.
Millions of Afghans like Khan live in Pakistan, many in refugee camps of mud-walled huts separated by rubbish-strewn dirt streets. Despite the squalor, most don’t want to go home. The Pakistan government, in coordination with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, launched a census last week to at least determine how many Afghans are in Pakistan, and draw up plans for them.
“This census is not aimed at encouraging refugees to repatriate,” Indrike Ratwatte, senior coordinator for UNHCR operations in Pakistan, told Reuters. “We want to have definite information which is necessary for developing policies for those Afghans who live here.” The exact number of refugees in Pakistan is not known but the government estimates close to three million Afghans live throughout the country, while the UNHCR estimates one million live in refugee camps. Observers say it is an uphill task for Pakistan to persuade Afghans to return to their country as a large number of them are making money from businesses in cities such as Islamabad and Peshawar. They have set up showrooms for traditional hand-woven Afghan rugs in posh neighbourhoods of Islamabad and Peshawar and they also run hotels and restaurants. While many Afghans are reluctant to go home because of economic difficulties, some said security was still a major concern despite fewer attacks by supporters of the
ousted Taliban.
“You never know when fighting flares up again,” said Sarfaraz, a grey-haired man from Afghanistan’s southeastern province of Ghazni who has been living in Pakistan for more than 15 years. “We will not return until all those who claim to be mujahideen (holy warriors) are disarmed,” he said, referring to the fighters who ended the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan but battled for years over the spoils of their victory. “Pray for us and for our country.”
Participation in the census is mandatory for all Afghans who have come to Pakistan since December 1979 but officials said they would not force refugees out. In the past three years, the UNHCR has helped nearly 2.3 million Afghans go home from Pakistan and it anticipates another 400,000 Afghans will go back in 2005. The refugee agency says a voluntary repatriation programme, suspended over the winter, will resume on March 7.
reuters
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