Pakistan says goodbye to Afghan
refugees By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI - Pakistan faces increased
international pressure to extend the stay of
Afghan refugees as it seeks to push them back to
war-torn Afghanistan.The government seems adamant
in the face of such pressure. "When their refugee
status expires on December 31, they will have to
leave," Habibullah Khan, secretary of the ministry
of states and frontier regions says over phone
from Islamabad.
"This is not something
that has come out of the blue to have created such
a furor; it was a strategy chalked out and
approved by the cabinet."
Pakistan would
have to expel 3 million Afghans, 1.7 million of
them registered, and more than half of these
living in camps. The
families of most of
these refugees, and an estimated 1.3 million
unregistered Afghans, have been in Pakistan for
more than 30 years.
Afghanistan is
ill-prepared for such a mass influx.
Given
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and
International Security Force (ISAF) troops
drawdown due by 2014, Afghanistan is battling its
own set of problems - reining in an insurgency,
reviving a collapsed economy and controlling the
rising power of the warlords.
Khan has
also said Afghan refugees have become a threat to
law and order and to social stability.
Haji Abdullah Bukhari, Afghan refugees
spokesperson living in one of the biggest refugee
camps, Camp Jadeed, in the southern port city of
Karachi is incensed: "Our Afghan colonies are more
peaceful than all of Karachi. He should give proof
before making such baseless and irresponsible
statements," he told IPS.
Bukahri, a
well-respected Afghan tribal elder, has been in
Pakistan for 30 years and divides his time running
an electrical shop and doing social work. He is
hopeful there will be an extension, a third. "I'm
not saying we won't go, but at this point in time,
Afghanistan is weak and will not be able to take
this burden."
Amanullah Mughal, 36,
himself an Afghan refugee, has been transporting
refugees to the border for some years now. "I
don't want to go to Afghanistan," he tells IPS.
"It will take me another 30 years to resettle
there."
Just about eight years old when he
came to Karachi from a village in Kunduz province
north of Afghanistan, Mughal now has nine
children, all born in Pakistan. They have never
set foot on Afghan soil and consider Pakistan
their country. Unfortunately Pakistanis don't see
them that way.
And so when their Proof of
Registration (PoR) cards expire, they will be
deemed illegal if still in Pakistan.
Bilal
Agha, senior field assistant with the United
Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) told IPS that
refoulement is a serious crime. This part of
refugee law guarantees protection against sending
anyone back to a country they left where their
lives or freedoms could be threatened.
"It
will not be accepted by any international actor
involved with refugees," Agha told IPS. "The UNHCR
has a clear understanding that no one will be
forcefully returned if he/she is not willing to
repatriate voluntarily."
Agha added that
the UNHCR will seek to ensure safety of Afghan
refugees after the expiry of PoR cards. He said
the refugee agency will closely track the
situation through its partners and with refugee
communities.
Some undocumented Afghans,
Agha said, are already being put behind bars under
the Foreigners Act of 1956. "After completion of
their sentence they are deported and handed over
to Afghan authorities at the border, in the
presence of Afghan consulate representatives from
Pakistan."
Bukhari smiles at the reality
behind such moves. "The doors are always open, and
people from both sides of the border come and go
all the time," he said. Pakistan has tried to
register all Afghans living in Pakistan, but is
unable to tap all those entering through its
porous border.
Mughal also lives in Camp
Jadeed, in Karachi's administrative district of
Malir. The camp is in Gadap town where 80% of the
70,000 Afghan refugees in Karachi live and are
registered.
"Most of the Afghans living
there work as daily wage earners. They are in
carpet weaving, the leather industry, fisheries or
in the recycling business," Agha Azam, coordinator
with the government's Afghan Refugees Repatriation
Cell told IPS. He has been running the Voluntary
Repatriation Center in Gadap Town for more than
nine years, and it is his job to register and
facilitate the repatriation of Afghan refugees.
"Because repatriation is purely voluntary,
we cannot encourage them to go," he said.
Since the beginning of this year, Azam
said the center had sent some 2,600 Afghans from
Karachi up to the Afghan border. Each was given
US$150 in cash assistance. He said he could not
say how many return through the same border.
Refugees point to the homes they have now
built over years. "This was barren land back in
the 1980s, and we lived in tents. Because there
was no habitation, snakes and scorpions often bit
our children. It is only recently that we have
been able to build mud houses," said Haji Abdullah
Bukhari, pointing to a ramshackle neighborhood of
Camp Jadeed.
Many such refugee settlements
lack basic health and education facilities. But
despite the terrible conditions, most don't want
to leave for a country that may be theirs but
which they barely know.
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