Repatriation: Following deadline, 100 refugees retreat to Afghanistan
After a month’s deadline was given to illegal Afghan refugees residing in Peshawar, over 100 families have retreated to Afghanistan, District Coordinating Officer (DCO) Siraj Ahmed Khan said on Thursday.
In order to improve the law and order situation, he added, the district administration has asked the refugees to leave the city and return to their own country within one month, ending on May 24.
Though the deadline has ended, however, the Afghan government has sought an extension maintaining that there are many areas in Afghanistan where the situation is critical and it is hard for Afghans to settle down. He said the Afghan government has also requested the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government to relax their policy for Afghan refugees and grant another extension.
The official said that respecting the request of the neighbouring country, a high-level meeting has been summoned at the DCO office on May 25 to consider whether giving a deadline extension is viable. Presently, he stated, 0.4 million Afghans refugees are illegally residing in Peshawar and a decision about their stay would be taken during the upcoming meeting.
To a question, he said if the meeting does not allow the extension then the already constituted police, towns and revenue staff committees would take action against the refugees under the foreign act.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 25th, 2012.
COMMENTS (2)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ
According to durrand line we are all Pakhtun resides either side. Third party can not just mark a line between us, mohmands, shinwari, yousufzai, etc we are all one nation regardless of living in two countries now in majority, if we treat them as refugees then why shah rukh khan imran khan Qadir khan, I know many mp,s belong to Afghanistan, they can be called pakistani because Britain tailored them by putting a line, we can not be changed by saying in schools aik done done, do done chaar. Come on man be sensitive we pashtoons are disappearing act fast now plz, don't be racist with fellow afghan brothers,
No more extensions, we are now very tired with hosting Afghans for over 30 years, is this not enough time? No more extensions should be given, enough is enough, why would they go back if we dont ask them to leave. The government of Afghanistan is a big enemy of Pakistan and constantly backstabs Pakistan with Americans, they are friends of India and should ask India to absorb these refugees, I have read news reports that Indians have even stopped renting houses to Afghans, so much for their freindship.
We the people of KPK demand of our officials to not allow these Afghans any more leniency.