PAKISTAN: Afghan delegation encouraging repatriation

ATTOCK, 19 Apr 2005 (IRIN) - A delegation of the Afghan Return Commission Working Group (RCWG) has been visiting Afghan refugees of Turkmen origin in the Pakistani city of Attock in Punjab province, some 80 km northeast of the capital, Islamabad, to hear their concerns about repatriation.

The RCWG, a government body, was formed three years ago to help remove obstacles in the way of repatriation of the millions of Afghans living in neighbouring countries. This is the first visit of its kind by the RCWG to inform Afghans in Pakistan about conditions in their homeland and to encourage the repatriation of at least a million Afghans who remain in the country.

The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has been sponsoring the tour of the nine-member RCWG team, composed of delegates from five northern provinces of Afghanistan; Balkh, Sar-I-Pul, Jowzjan, Samangan and Faryab.

"The delegation is here to tell Afghans from northern Afghanistan living in Pakistan about the prevailing situation over there and how their problems hindering repatriation could be solved. It [the delegation] is also here to collect questions that they will take back and raise with the relevant Afghan authorities," Jack Redden, a UNHCR spokesman, told IRIN in Islamabad on Monday.

About 2,500 Afghan families of Turkmen origin hailing from the northern provinces of Afghanistan have been settled in Attock for over past two decades. The Dari-speaking Turkmen have established new lives in the city with carpet weaving as their main source of income. A relatively well-to-do Afghan community, it is reluctant to relocate its established businesses to Afghanistan where immense problems of reconstruction, development and security remain, elders say.

"There is a huge pile of problems waiting for us if we go back," said Ustad Karimullah, an Afghan elder in Attock. "There is poor availability of land, shelter, drinking water, food, construction material and employment opportunities. Also there are immense problems of law and order; warlords still have a strong hold in several northern areas."

"At least five children of those few families who repatriated from here last year were killed during the intense winter this year. There is shortage of resources and [a lack] of social services - no one can imagine life without that, particularly for children and women," another community elder, Allah Murad, pointed out.

The UNHCR-sponsored RCWG delegation is planning to visit Afghan refugees living in all four provinces of Pakistan over the next two weeks.

Nearly 2.3 million Afghans have returned from Pakistan since 2002 under UNHCR's voluntary repatriation assistance programme. The agency estimated a further 400,000 would return this year, the UNHCR spokesman said.

The three-year tripartite agreement between the governments of Afghanistan, Pakistan and the UNHCR - which governs the voluntary repatriation programme of the UN refugee agency – runs until March 2006.

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