Executing NAP: Afghans to go home by year end, says minister
Over 1m unregistered refugees will be repatriated in the first phase.
As part of Pakistan’s new strategy to execute NAP, the government is preparing to return over 1 million unregistered Afghan refugees to their home country in the first phase. PHOTO: AFP
ISLAMABAD:
The federal government has decided to repatriate all Afghan refugees living in the country by the year-end. The decision has been taken to effectively implement the National Action Plan (NAP) to purge the country of militancy once and for all.
However, Kabul seems reluctant to welcome its own people and may request Islamabad to allow it sufficient time to brace for the mass repatriation.
“It’s time for Afghan refugees to go home. We cannot host them anymore [after December 31, 2015],” Federal Minister for States and Frontier Regions Lt Gen (retd) Abdul Qadir Baloch said on Tuesday.
As part of Pakistan’s new strategy to execute NAP, the government is preparing to return over 1 million unregistered Afghan refugees to their home country in the first phase. Afghan Minister for Refugees and Repatriation Said Hussain Alimi Balkhi is due in Pakistan next week to discuss the mechanism of the large repatriation, Qadir revealed.
The country is currently hosting over 2.6 million Afghan refugees, the largest refugee population anywhere in the world, SAFRON officials said.
An estimated 1.5 million of them hold the new proof of registration cards issued by the National Database Registration Authority with the validity of December 31, 2015, they added.
“Enough is enough. The International community should help us to honorably send all Afghan refugees back to Afghanistan,” the minister said. He, however, insisted that no crackdown was launched against Afghan citizens living in Pakistan.
Islamabad has already taken up this issue with the United Nations Refugee Agency after the December 16 Peshawar school massacre, urging it to help the country in the repatriation of Afghan refugees, Qadir said.
Interestingly, Kabul is not ready for such a huge influx of Afghans from Pakistan. “We will request Pakistan to give us enough time for necessary arrangements to accommodate millions of refugees,” said a senior official of Afghan Embassy in Pakistan who did not want to be named.
SAFRON officials further explained that Pakistan, through the Torkham border, had already pushed more than 35,000 undocumented Afghans from the country in the first six weeks of 2015 who were settled more than 35 years ago.
Around 37% Afghan refugees are living outside the camps, which according to them was not legal practice. The rest of Afghan refugees live in 41 camps while 29 camps are in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, 10 in Balochistan while one camp is in Mianwali, Punjab, they added.
Pakistan Peoples Party Senator Saeed Ghani was of the view that it is a fact that “illegal aliens including unregistered [Afghan] refugees are a serious threat to our national security but we will also have to fulfill international obligations.”
MNA Ghalib Wazir from Fata said that the government must come up with an organised policy which may ensure respectful repatriation of hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees.
“It’s true we cannot execute the National Action Plan against militants until we send all registered and unregistered refugees back to Afghanistan, so international donors should also assist Pakistan to resolve this humanitarian crisis.”
Published in The Express Tribune, February 25th, 2015.
The federal government has decided to repatriate all Afghan refugees living in the country by the year-end. The decision has been taken to effectively implement the National Action Plan (NAP) to purge the country of militancy once and for all.
However, Kabul seems reluctant to welcome its own people and may request Islamabad to allow it sufficient time to brace for the mass repatriation.
“It’s time for Afghan refugees to go home. We cannot host them anymore [after December 31, 2015],” Federal Minister for States and Frontier Regions Lt Gen (retd) Abdul Qadir Baloch said on Tuesday.
As part of Pakistan’s new strategy to execute NAP, the government is preparing to return over 1 million unregistered Afghan refugees to their home country in the first phase. Afghan Minister for Refugees and Repatriation Said Hussain Alimi Balkhi is due in Pakistan next week to discuss the mechanism of the large repatriation, Qadir revealed.
The country is currently hosting over 2.6 million Afghan refugees, the largest refugee population anywhere in the world, SAFRON officials said.
An estimated 1.5 million of them hold the new proof of registration cards issued by the National Database Registration Authority with the validity of December 31, 2015, they added.
“Enough is enough. The International community should help us to honorably send all Afghan refugees back to Afghanistan,” the minister said. He, however, insisted that no crackdown was launched against Afghan citizens living in Pakistan.
Islamabad has already taken up this issue with the United Nations Refugee Agency after the December 16 Peshawar school massacre, urging it to help the country in the repatriation of Afghan refugees, Qadir said.
Interestingly, Kabul is not ready for such a huge influx of Afghans from Pakistan. “We will request Pakistan to give us enough time for necessary arrangements to accommodate millions of refugees,” said a senior official of Afghan Embassy in Pakistan who did not want to be named.
SAFRON officials further explained that Pakistan, through the Torkham border, had already pushed more than 35,000 undocumented Afghans from the country in the first six weeks of 2015 who were settled more than 35 years ago.
Around 37% Afghan refugees are living outside the camps, which according to them was not legal practice. The rest of Afghan refugees live in 41 camps while 29 camps are in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, 10 in Balochistan while one camp is in Mianwali, Punjab, they added.
Pakistan Peoples Party Senator Saeed Ghani was of the view that it is a fact that “illegal aliens including unregistered [Afghan] refugees are a serious threat to our national security but we will also have to fulfill international obligations.”
MNA Ghalib Wazir from Fata said that the government must come up with an organised policy which may ensure respectful repatriation of hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees.
“It’s true we cannot execute the National Action Plan against militants until we send all registered and unregistered refugees back to Afghanistan, so international donors should also assist Pakistan to resolve this humanitarian crisis.”
Published in The Express Tribune, February 25th, 2015.