The UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR on Thursday said it had no evidence to support the fact that the remaining 1.65 million registered Afghan refugees had been involved in any militancy or drug trafficking.
Addressing a joint press conference along with Minister for State and Frontier Regions Shaukatullah Khan, UNHCR Country Representative Neill Wright said the ongoing returns were the largest voluntary repatriation operation anywhere in the world. He said from 2002 to 2012 the UNHCR Pakistan had facilitated voluntary repatriation of 3.8 million refugees. “In 2012, the UNHCR Pakistan has so far assisted 71,841 persons to return to Afghanistan,” he added. He said voluntary repatriation remained the preferred solution for refugees worldwide, adding that most Afghan refugees voluntarily repatriated to Afghanistan when they believed it was safe to return to their home country. However, he pointed out that the 1.65 million Afghan refugees remaining in Pakistan were a residual caseload experiencing challenges to their prospects for return.
He said as many as 1,807 families, comprising 9,793 individuals, had repatriated since the beginning of the Voluntary Repatriation “Surge” operations on October 23, which was more than double the figure during the equivalent period in 2011. To a question, the UNHCR country’s representative said the agency had no evidence to support that any registered Afghan refugee was involved in the ongoing militancy in the country as well as drug trafficking. To another question, he said the government had never deported any refugee forcefully.
Referring to the Population Profiling, Vetting and Response (or PPVR) project, he said the data collection began late in 2010 and continued in 2011 in 20 districts of Pakistan, covering around 65 percent of the entire Afghan population, over 135,000 households, or nearly 1 million Afghans. “We now have extremely detailed comprehensive PPVR data on socio-economic issues such as health, education, housing, water and sanitation, livelihood, skills and remittances; on migration patterns (including the year of arrival, and the intention to return to Afghanistan); on investor potential and other protection needs,” he added.
In addition, he said the UNHCR also had information on the opportunities and skills that the refugee population in Pakistan would bring to their home country of Afghanistan when they do decide to return.
He emphasised that the government policy-makers need this clear profile of the refugees to manage the solution-finding process. “UN agencies, humanitarian and development partners, and NGOs, need this profile to best address the needs of the current 1.65 million refugees still in Pakistan,” he added.
