Outflow of Afghans: Stats highlight flaw in repatriation policy

Due to lack of exact data, the continuation of the current policy may lead to humanitarian crisis

PESHAWAR: The federal government has yet to formalise its repatriation policy for Afghan refugees. However, numbers that emerged after setting up a border management system at Torkham have not only baffled officials in Khyber-Paktunkhwa but have also brought into question the entire policy.

Documents available with The Express Tribune show that from June to October, 678,845 Afghan refugees left K-P through the Torkham border. Of these people, only 287,763 were repatriated through the UN High Commissioner for Refugees’ (UNHCR) voluntary repatriation centres (VRCs).

An official said, “This means 391,082 individuals [probably unregistered Afghan refugees] have fallen off the radar. This stat points to an anomaly in figures quoted by the Ministry of States and Frontier Regions (Safron) and the UNHCR.  He said any policy framework that was formalised with statistics that are not based on real-time data would only cause a humanitarian crisis.

The figures further show that the incoming movement from Afghanistan to Pakistan from March to May this year had been 620,179 individuals. But after enforcement of border regulation only 167 Afghan nationals have been documented to enter through Torkham till the end of October.

K-P is hosting 62% of the Afghans living in Pakistan. While the official statistics from ministry of Safron show that 0.650 million refugees reside in the province and there are around 0.6 million unregistered refugees.

If the 391,082 unregistered refugees from this 0.6m people have already left the country in the last 5 months then only around 2.1m unregistered Afghans are left in the country. However, the official said entire data is questionable and based on data from 2004.

“A census to document Afghan refugees by the Commissionerate Afghan Refugees (CAR) was called off twice,” he said. The matter is further complicated by the correspondence between K-P and federal government, a copy which is available with The Express Tribune.

While the ministry of Safron invited views on the proposal to reassign transfers and postings of CAR back to the federal government, K-P’s Home and Tribal Affairs department opined that status quo should be maintained as the repatriation, registration of unregistered Afghan refugees and initiating certain measures under the National Action Plan were at a critical stage.

However, Safron ministry issued a notification in supersession of all earlier policy advice. “The effect of which was that currently there is no coordination on what happens to refugees and what policy measures to directly follow,” said the official.

Sources in the ministry said the new policy was considering a two-year phase-wise repatriation. “While the global refugee crisis has diverted the attention to the international humanitarian crisis, the policy will require resources before it is formalised otherwise it will be a difficult situation,” the source added.

While the ministry of Safron did not respond to immediate calls, the UNHCR when contacted by The Express Tribune said they were only responsible for registered Afghans. A spokesperson said currently three VRCs were functioning within Pakistan, two of which were in K-P and one in Balochistan. He said UNCHR was fully capable of dealing with the situation as it has had repatriated as many as 6,000 individuals in a single day.  “308,171 individuals comprising 46,300 families have been repatriated. Some of the unregistered refugees were handled by the International Migration Organisation (IMO) once they are in Afghanistan,” he said.

However, officials believe that under the current circumstances any policy statement that does not keep an overall perspective in mind will only lead to further criticism from all quarters. “The western border cannot be treated the same way as the eastern border,” said another senior official. “Any framework that does not directly involve stakeholders will only add to the problem.”

Published in The Express Tribune, December 23^rd, 2016.