Pakistan: Afghan refugees

The deadline issued by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government last week that unregistered Afghan nationals should return to Afghanistan within three days (by Aug 31, 2011) looks like a joke for many because it was not implementable going by all previous records. Pakistan continues to be the home of about three million Afghans who fled their country during the 1980s Soviet Union (now defunct) invasion of Afghanistan and settled in many parts of Pakistan. Their biggest concentration, said to be more than two-thirds, is Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Those designated as refugees are under the protection and care of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), and provided legal status by the government of Pakistan to remain in the country until the end of 2012. Some one million unregistered Afghan nationals have been living in Pakistan illegally and 60 per cent of them reside in KP alone. Only Peshawar has their population of around 400,000. What happened to the provincial government’s warning is obvious; no-one from illegal refugees left. How can a government seek the return of such refugees, no matter they are legal or illegal, in three days when most of them have settled their business, purchased property and are pursuing their full socio-economic life for nearly three decades. On the other hand the federal government, in consultation with the UNHCR and Afghanistan, has extended till December 31, 2012 the stay of 1.7 million Afghan refugees who have been registered and are in possession of the Proof of Registration cards. It has also been agreed that the provincial government would not send bonafide Afghan refugees. The refugees are not only Afghans, they are also nationals of Central Asian countries, including Tajikistan and Uzbekistan who, in some cases, disguised themselves as Afghan nationals. Besides KP, they also settled in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) while several thousand have also spread out to Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan. One reason why are they returning, is uncertainty about the future of their country particularly after the withdrawal of foreign armies; they fear Afghanistan might plunge into another civil war subsequently. What, however, appears behind the panic-stricken decision of the KP government is that its leadership and officialdom may have been frustrated with more frequent terrorist attacks in Peshawar and elsewhere across the province and suspected the Afghans and other nationals’ hand behind them. Although the ultimatum had no response, a crackdown on refugees is expected any time after the passage of the deadline. However, it is not going to be an easy sailing as the past record shows. For example, the UNHCR sent back some 20,000 of them last year with subsistence money. Most of them returned. District administration Peshawar gave them a deadline on April 25 this year seeing their return by May 25 this year. After the expiry of the deadline, only a few Afghans illegally staying in Peshawar left for Afghanistan.