Registered Afghan refugees may be allowed to stay till Dec 2017

Registered Afghan refugees may be allowed to stay till Dec 2017
ZULFIQAR ALI — UPDATED 5 MINUTES AGO




WHATSAPP
3 COMMENTS
EMAIL
PRINT
PESHAWAR: Registered Afghan nationals are likely to be allowed to stay in Pakistan till December 2017.

According to official sources, the Ministry of State and Frontier Region (Safron) put up a summary to the prime minister secretariat a few days ago proposing that Afghans having Proof of Registration (PoR) cards be given another year to stay in the country.

If the federal cabinet approves the summary, this will be the fourth extension given to the refugees.

Also read: Just how badly does the KP police treat Afghan refugees?

It is up to the federal cabinet to approve or reject the summary,” said an official who did not want to be named because he is not authorised to give statement to the media on the subject.

He said that during a meeting of the tripartite commission held in Kabul in August last year, the Afghan government had sought three-year extension for registered refugees. The commission comprising Pakistan, Afghani-stan and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had discussed a draft plan for repatriation of refugees.

Federal government had issued PoR cards to 1.6 million Afghans. The cards renewed last year will expire on December 31.

The stay of registered and unregistered Afghans for a large period was discussed at a recent meeting of Corps Commanders. Return of Afghans, particularly those not registered, was listed in the National Action Plan.

The government had decided to expel all unregistered Afghans after the massacre at the Army Public School and College, Peshawar, in December 2014. Implementation of the decision was put on hold because the federal and provincial governments could not work out a mechanism for the repatriation of illegal Afghans.

“We know nothing about compulsions of the federal government for its lenient policy despite the fact the establishment and provincial governments also wanted to resolve the refugees’ issue,” said a senior official.

“This may be the last extension for registered Afghans,” he said. If the cabinet approved the extension plan, sources said, the government, instead of renewing the PoR cards, would issue a notification to the quarters concerned to consider the document valid till December 2017.

The Afghan government and UNHCR are against forcible repatriation of registered refugees and have asked Islamabad to let them return to their country through the voluntary repatriation programme.

The voluntary repatriation programme, sponsored by the UN refugee agency, is moving at a slow pace. Only 57,000 of about 1.5 million registered Afghans have gone back to their country under the programme since January 2015.

On the other hand, the government is yet to frame a policy for the return of approximately two million undocumented Afghan nationals who have been living in different areas of the country, mostly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, without legal status.

The sources said that Safron’s plan to register undocumented Afghan nationals was put on the back burner after the interior ministry opposed registration of undocumented Afghans for one year and said that was not the mandate of Safron.

The ministry had allocated Rs 74 million for registration of around one million illegal Afghans and assigned the task to National Database and Registration Authority.

Nadra in collaboration with the Commissionerate for refugees had identified a total of 11 registration points in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa alone.

Published in Dawn, November 25th, 2015

Registered Afghan refugees may be allowed to stay till Dec 2017 - Pakistan - DAWN.COM
@DESERT FIGHTER @django @pakistani342 @Color_Less_Sky @WAJsal

they will never go and we should ask afghanistan to become our 5th province

Zibago said:

The voluntary repatriation programme

Click to expand...

What incentives are there for Afghans to follow or adopt this program?

Color_Less_Sky said:

What incentives are there for Afghans to follow or adopt this program?

Click to expand...

2 Lakh rupees per family i think?

Zibago said:

2 Lakh rupees per family i think?

Click to expand...

I don't think so they will buy it for that. Its peanuts, may be some will but most of them I don't think so

Zibago said:

2 Lakh rupees per family i think?

Click to expand...

This is a good proposal -- at least tax them for the stay

Voluntary repatriation will never work when their country is in a state of war. Why would one voluntarily leave basic facilities and a safe and prosperous life to go back to a war zone.

I personally believe that immediate repatriation of unregistered afghans must be made and repatriation spanning in a couple of years of registered refugees should be made so that we can end this burden on our economy.

However such steps are small and insignificant if they come running back thus we have to trench the border to make sure they don't come back or atleast don't come back in droves.

Color_Less_Sky said:

I don't think so they will buy it for that. Its peanuts, may be some will but most of them I don't think so

Click to expand...

Sir jee, May I please, have couple of peanuts

RoadRunner401 said:

Sir jee, May I please, have couple of peanuts

Click to expand...

Are you an Afghan?

Seriously this is peanuts for many, I know an Afghan family that are neighbors of my close relatives and believe me PKR 200,000 is peanuts for them, considering their wealth and number of family members this amount would be a day's spending before Eid or any festival for them.

Home from home | TNS - The News on Sunday

Home from home
Naimat Khan November 22, 2015 Leave a comment

The emotional departure of three Afghan families who have spent 34 long years in Pakistan


Just leaving memories behind.

Just a month after the Kunduz fall — that raised alarm bells for the world — three Afghan families comprising 54 members and living in a remote village of Mardan, Duryal, packed up for their home country, Afghanistan.

Expecting a very warm welcome in their native village in Jalalabad, the farewell in Pakistani town was equally unforgettable for the Afghan families who had spent over three decades with them. Almost the entire village of over five hundred men was present to help them load the Jalalabad-bound trucks with luggage of the families.

Before they left for Saracha, their village in Jalalabad, the families had dinners and lunches hosted by the locals. “We haven’t cooked our meals for the last three days as every day a family gives us a treat — a daig full of locally cooked Afghani rice is prepared for us.”

Outside their homes, where they have spent 34 long years of their lives in Duryal village of Mardan, some men are loading trucks which will pass through Landi Kotel to reach Saracha village which is a few kilometers east of Jalalabad, the capital of Nagarhar province of Afghanistan.

Earlier the during the day time, Daray Abay, a powerful lady in her 70s who had been heading the families, accompanied by other women of the families, visited each home of the small town to say ‘goodbye’ to the local women and say ‘thank you’ for their love they had shown to them over the years. The gesture, however, would attract similar words of kindness and gratitude as this was Daray who would always provide milk of her lambs when surprise guests would visit any house in the town.

Although she is a refugee, Daray Abay is deemed a powerful lady who owned dozens of lambs and camels, earning a handsome income for her family. She would not help the locals with milk only but also lend money, completely free of interest, if anyone needed it. The locals always treated her like the elder of the whole village.

“We are extremely thankful for the hospitality that our Pakistani brothers have extended to us over decades,” says Jan Muhammad, another member of the family.

“This is a strange time for us, with mix of happy and sad feelings,” says Aman Khan, who was born and raised in Mardan and had never been to Afghanistan. “It is like we are leaving behind our homes and our own brothers.”

“We don’t know our fate in a country plagued by wars and destruction. We still don’t know whether it is a good time for us to return, especially when the news of Taliban’s advancement in Kunduz and Tehar are coming out, but we want to put an end to the refugee life and return to our lands,” says Jan Muhammad.

“We don’t have factories or huge job opportunities there. We have recently rebuilt our homes there with the hope that we will be able to find a two-time meal for our kids in the terrains of Afghanistan by doing some labour or shepherding our lambs,” says Jalalay. Nangarhar province has agricultural lands but the refugees will have to rely on their lambs and labour work.

“No one wants to leave his home. The successive wars have not only destroyed our motherland but made millions of Afghans homeless. It is very hard to be homeless,” says Jan Muhammad, adding it is the common culture, language and religion that had made things easier for them in Khyber Pukhtunkhwa province of Pakistan.

Some of the families of our relatives are still housed here in nearby towns such as Janga and Kandao and they will join us once we settle there. When asked if the relatively peaceful Jalalabad had to face the Kunduz like situation what will be their strategy, Jan Muhammad said their Pakistani host, Amanullah Khan, the local landlord, has advised them to not destroy their proof of registration cards.

“But we pray for a peaceful Afghanistan. We don’t want to be known for fighting wars any more. We also deserve good life like rest of the world. We want to prosper. We don’t know who is right or wrong. We also don’t care who is ruling Afghanistan. But the bloodshed should be ended,” says Jan Muhammad with fear and hope in his eyes.

According to the UNHCR, Pakistan continues to host approximately 1.5 million refugees. Most of them are from Afghanistan who lives in refugee villages and urban areas. Since March 2002, the UNHCR has facilitated the return of approximately 3.9 million registered Afghans from Pakistan.

Of the total 1,535,358 refugees, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province hosts 62 per cent, FATA one per cent, Azad Kashmir 0.2 per cent, Islamabad 2 per cent, Punjab 11 per cent, Balochistan 19 per cent whereas Sindh has 4 per cent of the total registered refugees where most them lives in the port city of Karachi.

According to a report, the UN refugee agency has facilitated the return of over 50,000 registered Afghan refugees from different parts of Pakistan so far this year under the agency’s largest and longest running voluntary programme. Of them, some 25,900 have returned this year from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

However, the return of the families of Jan Muhammad, Jalaly and Aman Khan is not part of this programme. They say they don’t need any persuasion for going back to Afghanistan. They need peace at their home.

“Why would be one living away from his home? If there were no wars and we had the opportunity to find meals for our kids, we would have never left our land,” says Mulla Jan, another Afghan refugee who also plans to return to Afghanistan.

Everyone wants to live and that’s what we Afghans are striving for by living in countries away from our own lands, he adds.

Afghan elders and analysts point out that the recent crisis in Kunduz had negatively affected the repatriation process as the refugees are now unwilling to return because of the security situation there.

“Pakistan’s law enforcement agencies and police have been harassing us here, so we are leaving. But there are still security problems there as the Taliban are still in a position to capture any Afghan city and start a fierce fighting with the Afghan government,” says Haji Abdullah Bukhari, representative of Afghan refugees in Karachi.