Seeking an early Afghans’

In a bid to curb the worst-ever insurgency that left thousands of the people dead, the Kyber Pakhtunkhwa government, in response to the State and Frontier Region (Safron) Ministry’s draft policy recommendations for the Afghan refugees beyond 2013, has reportedly offered a couple of proposals for the ‘sustainable’ repatriation of 1.6 million registered Afghan refugees from Pakistan. The KPK government, opposing extension in Afghan refugees’ stay in the Pakistan, suggests that the registered Afghans be equally relocated in all four provinces instead of burdening one federating unit—the KPK. For last three decades, the KPK had been forced to host over 62 per cent of the refugees. Having been sick of the agonizing living conditions in the refugee camps because negligence of world bodies, the 60 % of the registered and the unregistered Afghans, reports suggest, have managed to settle themselves outside camps with the connivance of the corrupt officials in the provincial administration and others security agencies—many of them even hold National Identity Cards of Pakistan. Without a doubt, the war-torn KPK, having fragile economy and underdeveloped infrastructure and poor health, education and sanitation services, is feeling the burden of the massive settlement of Afghans refugees. On the top of it the province is finding it extremely hard to counter the security problems. Ignoring the problems being faced by the KPK over the years, the federal government has made another autocratic decision of granting another extension to the registered Afghans, hence feeling heat of security concerns, the KPK government is justified in proposing a comprehensive repatriation plan, calling upon the federal government to send all Afghan refugees home at the earliest otherwise these refugees being relocated in other federating units in case Islamabad wants to continue with its policy of hosting the Afghan refugees. Over the years, the free movement of Afghans from the both sides of the Afghan border has increased corruption manifold especially in Pakistan. The governments on the either side of the Durand Line are not in a position to plug in the countless pours existing in the long border though they keep shifting responsibility of their failure to control the intrusions of terrorists and civilians alike on each other. Secondly the refugees cards issued to Afghans living in Pakistan have also been expired hence they are facing the humiliation every now and then contrary to instructions of the Safron ministry to the agencies concerned not to harass the Afghans registered in Pakistan. Amidst growing incidents of bombing and massive corruption, the KPK government is rightly calling for installing biometric system to check movement of Afghan nationals. In the long wars against the two superpowers, the brave Afghan nation has made it clear to the World that no body can defeat them hence the displaced people of Afghanistan should be treated with dignity and respect. Pakistan with the help of the UNHCR should make honourable arrangements for their repatriation to their home land. Thus the federal government should earnestly endorse the provincial government’s demand seeking increase in per person UNHCR grant for the refugees from $150 to $500 along with the facilities to encourage Afghan nationals to return home. Inordinate delay in the repatriation of the Afghans will neither serve the interest of Pakistan nor of Afghanistan. To alleviate sufferings of the people of the KPK and FATA region, Islamabad needs to revisit its National Management and Repatriation Policy of Afghans on urgent basis. After a long war, the Americans and her allies have started their pull-out from Afghanistan which will be complete next year. Pakistan should also give a time-frame of one year to the Afghan refugees to return to home land or it should ask for the UNO help to make third country settlement of the Afghan refugees so that Pakistan especially the KPK can recover from the agony of war and the economic woes associated with it.