Pakistan to close Afghan refugee camps in diverse Vicinities
By Maria A Khan - Pakistan Times Staff Correspondent

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is to close all camps for Afghan refugee in tribal areas along the Afghan border, the United Nations Refugee Agency [UNHCR] says.

A UHNCR statement said the move would affect more than 105,000 refugees who could not be helped properly because of security problems in the region.

The government will offer them voluntary repatriation or relocation within Pakistan, the UNHCR says.

Pakistan is estimated to hosts more than three million Afghan refugees.

In recent years more than two million have returned home.

Millions of Afghans fled their homeland after the invasion by Soviet troops. They took refuge mainly in Pakistan and some families went to Iran. Refugee numbers were further swelled during years of civil war and rule by the hardline Taleban.

Impossible

The UNHCR says it agrees with the Pakistani government's decision to close two camps in the Kurram and Bajaur agencies on the Afghan border.

It says it is impossible to offer proper assistance to the refugees in border areas because of continuing clashes between the security troops and militants.

A number of refugee camps have already been closed in other border areas.

Earlier this week the government said it was relocating Afghan refugees camped in the capital Islamabad and nearby Rawalpindi for security reasons.

In-depth

Pakistan has decided to close down Afghan refugee camps in tribal districts along the Afghanistan border and move some 60,000 refugees out of the capital by the end of month, the UN said.

"In a move to further consolidate the Afghan refugee population... the government in Islamabad has announced its decision to close all camps in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA)," the UN refugee agency said in a statement on Saturday.

A decision has also been taken to move Afghan refugees now scattered in and around the Pakistani capital, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) added.

Camps in Bajaur and Kurram

Camps in Bajaur and Kurram on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border which are home to over 105,000 Afghan refugees will be closed on August-31, it said.

"The refugees will be offered a choice of voluntary repatriation to Afghanistan or relocation within Pakistan."

The UNHCR said that it "supported" the relocations as clashes between suspected Al-Qaeda linked militants and Pakistani security forces had made it "impossible" to assist the refugees properly.

Camps in restive South Waziristan were closed last year and those in North Waziristan were closed at the end of June.

In southwestern Baluchistan province, one camp was closed in July while another will be emptied by the end of August, the UN body said.

Meanwhile, more than 60,000 Afghan refugees around Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, are also set to move.

Security Reasons

The Pakistani government had announced on Tuesday that Afghans living in slums in Islamabad and neighbouring Rawalpindi would be transferred away from these locations due to "security reasons."

The relocations were ordered more than a year ago, but the Afghan government and elders from the Afghan communities had asked for the move to be postponed, the UNHCR said.

About three million Afghans are still living in Pakistan, more than 25 years after the 1979 Soviet invasion forced them to flee their homeland, a joint Pakistan-UN census found earlier this year.

About 1.3 million Afghans now live in 115 Pakistan refugee camps, mostly along the Afghan border, while 1.7 million live in cities, including the slums outside Islamabad.

Angelina Jolie

Hollywood star Angelina Jolie, a UN goodwill ambassador visited Pakistan recently and went around the Afghan refugee camps to see the refugees and to assess the best possible facilities, being provided by Pakistan since 1979 in cooperation with the United Nations.

Millions have voluntarily returned, but others are reluctant to go back to a war-shattered country where fighting between US-led coalition forces and Taliban and Al-Qaeda linked insurgents has claimed about 800 lives this year.●