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PAKISTAN: Afghan Refugee Camp Spared Closure Till Spring

Ashfaq Yusufzai

PESHAWAR, Sep 8 2007 (IPS) - Afghan refugee leaders heaved a sigh of relief Friday after the Pakistan government agreed to postpone the closure of the Jalozai refugee camp, 35 km east of this border city, to April next year.

The decision was taken at a jirga (tribal assembly) called by the Commissionerate of Afghan refugees (CAR) and 50 tribal elders from the Jalozai camp who represented the refugees.

An agreement was signed with Nasir Azam, commissioner of CAR under which the refugees would voluntarily vacate the camp by Apr. 30, 2008.

“We are thankful to our host, Pakistan, for helping us in these trying times. The situation back home coupled with the fast approaching holy month of Ramazan (Ramadan) and impending winter season is such that we are unable to return to our country,” Maulvi Mohammad Qayyum, one of the participants told IPS.

Sajid Hussain Chatta, federal secretary state and frontier region (SAFRON), UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) country head Guenet Gubre-Christos, CAR chief Abdur Rauf Khattak and Dr Abdul Hameed Ahmadzai, director of the Afghan Ministry of Refugees Repatriation witnessed the ceremony.

Jalozai camp, set up by the UN on a small parcel of land, was supposed to be a temporary haven for those fleeing the crisis in Afghanistan. Millions of Afghans have crossed the border to Pakistan seeking refuge from the after effects of decades of war, famine and drought.

Since the Hamid Karzai government was installed in Afghanistan, Pakistan has been urging the refugees to return. The UNHCR has been supervising the voluntary repatriation of Afghans but the process has slowed down with the re-emergence of the Taliban in southern Afghanistan.

That and the failure of the Afghan government and the international community to provide jobs and improve the quality of life of ordinary people have held up the completion of the repatriation process.

Fazle Kabir, a refugee in Jalozai, said most Afghans do not want to go home because there is “no electricity, no school, no hospital and no sports.”

A frustrated Pakistan government threatened to close down the refugee camps. Refugees in Jalozai were told that those who did not leave voluntarily would be moved to new camps in Dir and Chitral in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) after Aug. 31.

Initially there were 24 camps in NWFP and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), along the Afghan border. Now, there are just15.

The Pakistan government has been defensive about the closure of the refugee camps. Chatta, SAFRON secretary, claimed, “we are vacating the camps under compulsion. There is massive public pressure on the government to send the refugees back.”

Only, about 1,000 Afghan families from Jalozai had registered for repatriation. The majority of refugees were refusing to move to the alternative sites being offered by the Pakistani authorities, since there were no facilities or possibilities of employment.

CAR’s Azam admitted the infrastructure was poor when he said: “We are trying our level best to establish 50 schools in the new refugee camps in Dir and Chitral where the refugees can be relocated after the closure of Jalozai.”

“Relocation isn’t acceptable to us. We are happy at Jalozai,” said Dost Mohammad, a refugee representative.

Chatta assured IPS that the government would never force the refugees to go back to Afghanistan. “We hope the refugees would honour the commitment and would go back by the extended deadline. This is the last extension,” a CAR official said.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s Frontier police have intensified efforts to push “illegal” Afghans back across the border. “So far, we have deported about 1,500 refugees for violating Section 14 of the Foreigners’ Act since Jun. 15,” said Mohammad Tahir Khan, a senior official of Peshawar police.

An estimated 1.3 million Afghans still remain in Pakistan. According to Khan, there are 250,000 illegal Afghans in the country. The police arrest 20 people on the average every day, and deport them.

“The decision to oust Afghans who cannot prove their status in Pakistan was taken at a meeting between the police and officials of CAR,” he told IPS.

Last year, the government had announced the closure of Pakistan’s largest Afghan refugee camp, Kacha Garhi, by Jun. 30 this year. Later the deadline was extended by a fortnight. The camp has now been completely demolished.

Three camps, Jalozai in NWFP and two others in Balochistan province, were expected to shut down by August this year.

Kamran Arif, vice-chairman of the independent Pakistan Human Rights Commission (HRCP), urged the government to “make the repatriation process transparent and treat the refugees like humans. The Kacha Garhi camp was surrounded by the police and paramilitary troops and bulldozers moved in to demolish the mud plastered houses the moment their occupants left.”