The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has said that the number of Afghan refugees voluntarily returning home has surpassed 500 families daily – a marked increase on the 10 families a day a few months ago.
The surge in refugee repatriations comes only a few weeks after the Pakistani government set a new deadline of six months for Afghan refugees in Pakistan to leave.
Meanwhile, Afghan Consular General in Peshwar has criticized the harassment of Afghan refugees by the Pakistani police, saying that huge numbers of Afghan refugees are willing to return to their country.
The Afghan consular general in Peshawar has blasted the Pakistan police and security forces for harassing the refugees.
“Unfortunately some of these refugees are mistreated by the Pakistani police, these approaches are against international laws,” said the Afghan consul general in Pakistan Abdullah Wahid Poyan.
He described the treatment of refugees by Pakistani police and security agencies as contrary to the refugees’ rights and against the international conventions on migrants and refugees.
“There has been an unprecedented surge in the repatriation of Afghan refugees, because these days four to five hundred families repatriate from Pakistan to Afghanistan voluntarily a day while the figure was only ten families in the past,” said Poyan.
“In the past only ten families were repatriating voluntarily ( a day), but now more than five hundred families come here. We want to increase the capacity of registration centers amid rising repatriations,” a UNHCR official in Peshawar said.
Meanwhile, a number of Afghan refugees in Pakistan have said that they are willing to come back to their country.
“We decided to leave Pakistan as we know that Pakistan now wants us to leave,” said an Afghan refugee in Peshawar.
“It is approximately 35 or 40 years that I have lived in Pakistan, I was a young child when I came here to Pakistan and now they want me to return to my homeland and contribute to the reconstruction,” said one Afghan refugee.
“Pakistan has given us a six month deadline to leave, we want to leave before the deadline is reached,” another refugee said.
The Afghan consul general in Peshawar said that the repatriations of the Afghan refugees will help expedite the process of reconstruction of the country and it also decreases the burden on host nations.
The number of Afghan refugees living in Pakistan at the moment is roughly estimated at three million.http://www.tolonews.com/en/afghanistan/26600-500-afghan-refugees-return-home-from-pakistan-daily-unhcr
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