PAKISTAN: Afghan census shows three million remain

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

ISLAMABAD, 2 May 2005 (IRIN) - More than three million Afghan refugees are living in Pakistan, according to the results of the first ever census conducted earlier this year to count the number of Afghans nationwide, officials told a press briefing on Monday in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.

The national census was carried out by the government of Pakistan with financial and technical assistance from the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

"The census, conducted between late February and early March, counted a total of just over three million Afghans across Pakistan, with more than 1.8 million living in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP)," Sajid Hussain Chattha, secretary for the Ministry of States and Frontier Regions (SAFRON), told journalists. The ministry has the main responsibility for Afghan refugees.

But the official said they receive only a few US dollars a year to care for each refugee living in camps created to house a wave of Afghans who fled to Pakistan and Iran during years of conflict going back to the Soviet invasion in 1979.

"We need billions of rupees of funds both for the rehabilitation work and maintenance of these refugees," he said.

Around 2,640 enumerators from the Pakistan Census Organisation (PCO) were employed to count Afghans living inside UNHCR-administered camps and outside in urban and rural settlements across Pakistan.

The entire programme to count and register all Afghans who have been living in Pakistan since 1979 has been split into four phases, Najam Hasan, Pakistan's chief census commissioner told IRIN after the briefing.

"The first phase was all about identifying and mapping the places of Afghan populations across the country. During the phase two a detailed, comprehensive counting of Afghans was carried out," said Hasan.

"Now we've entered the phase three and the data gathered by census teams is being processed and a detailed report will be available by the end of May. It [the report] will include the precise place of residence, source of livelihood, place of origin in Afghanistan, intention to return this year and other information collected during the survey," Hasan explained.

Despite criticism of the registration process, that was complicated by security problems and poor weather, the UNHCR's head in Pakistan, Guenet Guebre-Christos, expressed satisfaction at the outcome.

"Since it was a huge logistic operation, so there may be negligible lapses, but as a whole the entire exercise was conducted peacefully and according to an agreed procedure," Chritos told IRIN.

The findings of the census are intended to help Pakistan and the UN refugee agency manage the millions of Afghans who look set to remain in the country after the expiry of the tripartite agreement in March 2006 that governs the voluntary repatriation of Afghans. Under the programme, some 2.3 million Afghans have returned voluntarily to Afghanistan since 2002.

UNHCR now estimates a further 400,000 will go back to Afghanistan in 2005.

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