Afghan govt seeks extension of refugees’ stay in Pakistan

• Afghan diplomat says over one million refugees cannot be sent back home in one month time
• Elders reject govt’s Jan 31 deadline; demand time to sort out business matters with locals

ISLAMABAD/PESHAWAR: Afghanistan has pressed Pakistan to grant up to a one-year extension of the stay of over one million registered Afghan refugees in Pakistan, Afghan diplomats said on Monday.

The demand came days after the federal cabinet decided to grant only one-month extension to the stay of nearly 1.4 million registered refugees in Pakistan. In its January 3 meeting, the cabinet granted the extension in the Proof of Registration (PoR) cards that allow registered refugees to stay legally in the country.

The PoR cards expired on December 31, 2017 and under the cabinet’s new decision the registered Afghan refugees can legally stay in Pakistan until January 31. The cabinet had also decided that the issue of early repatriation of the Afghan refugees should be raised with the UN refugee agency and with the international community.

Afghanistan Deputy Ambassador to Pakistan Zardasht Shams said that over one million refugees cannot be sent back home in one month time. He said that the Afghan government was in contact with the officials in Pakistan to extend the stay of the registered refugees by one year or at least six months.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has already suspended voluntary repatriation of the refugees from Pakistan for winter break until March, he said. The cabinet has taken the decision at a time when the documentation of the hundreds of thousands of unregistered refugees is underway in Pakistan.

The Afghan deputy ambassador said that about 700,000 unregistered refugees had been documented until January 5. The documentation process, which is going on in 21 centres across Pakistan, is scheduled to conclude on January 31.

Addressing a press conference at the Peshawar Press Club, elders of the Afghan refugee rejected the January 31 deadline set by the government for their stay in the country and demanded more time to sort out their business matters with the local people. They said that the refugees to have pumped millions of rupees into the local economy and called for the government to create a mechanism to reimburse them.

Afghan elder Abdul Ghafar Shinwari said that they were ready for repatriation back to their country but the government must set guidelines for their investments in the country. He said that the Afghans have invested more than four billion dollars in different sectors. He said that Islamabad must ensure their safe and respectable repatriation.

He said that they have stayed over 40 years in Pakistan with respect and dignity. However, forced repatriation would end things on a sour note, he said. Shinwari also pointed out a failure of the Afghan government to accommodate the refugees who had already repatriated. The refugees planned a meeting with local officials to discuss these issues being faced by them.