ISLAMABAD, 5 March (IRIN) - Afghan refugees living without documentation in Pakistan after fleeing their
war-torn country have given a lukewarm response to a United Nations-assisted voluntary repatriation programme. "What will people do in the long run when there isn't even any security?" Saida Jan, an
Afghan elder living in the outskirts of Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, asked. Many of the refugees have lived in Pakistan for decades – and Jan is not alone in his hesitation over going back. Just 20 families, comprising 97 people, have so far been repatriated since the programme began last Thursday, officials at the office of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Islamabad confirmed on Monday. Having registered some 2.1 million Afghans in a four-month long countrywide drive that ended on 15 February, Pakistani officials have asked all unregistered Afghans to leave the country before 15
April. About 400,000 Afghans are believed to have not registered with the Pakistani authorities, officials at the Afghan embassy in Islamabad said. "Afghans with no PoR [Proof of Registration]
cards should return before 15 April. [Otherwise] they will be subject to the laws of the land after this date," warned Nayyar Agha, head of the Commissionerate for Afghan Refugees (CAR) in Islamabad. Dr Aluzai Ghazi, a representative of the Afghan Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation at the Afghan embassy in Islamabad, told IRIN that hundreds of Afghans were coming to the embassy every day to
see whether officials could persuade Pakistani authorities to extend the six-week amnesty period. Ghazi added that the majority of the unregistered Afghans were daily wage labourers and workers in
Pakistan's informal industries. "At least 50 Afghan nomad families work here at a brick kiln and not a single person has got a PoR card," said Saida Jan. "These poor unskilled labourers survive on
their daily wages and live in mud houses. They do not have any means to move to Afghanistan and start anew in a situation when there are no job opportunities," he added. In an effort to address this
issue, UNHCR has increased its assistance package three-fold from US $30 to $100 per Afghan repatriating. But Afghans on the street said extra money alone would not help them start afresh in their
homeland. "This is a one-time assistance, and there is so much inflation inside Afghanistan," said Paida Din, an Afghan labourer at Islamabad's main vegetable market. After first singling out
unregistered Afghans, the UNHCR programme will on 16 April be thrown open to registered Afghans who want to return to their country, according to agency spokesman Babar Baloch in Islamabad. More
than 2.8 million Afghans have voluntarily returned from Pakistan since 2002 under UNHCR's voluntary return assistance programme. By comparison, the number of returns in 2006 was low, with only
132,000 Afghans having repatriated, far less than UN expectations of 400,000. This year, the agency expects upwards of 250,000 Afghans to return from Pakistan and Iran, the primary host countries of
the Afghan diaspora. ts/ds/ts/ed
