Afghan refugee crisis brewing
Home to 3 million refugees, Iran and Pakistan are intensifying efforts to send them home. Experts say it will be 'disastrous' for Afghanistan.
from the May 17, 2007 edition
Page 3 of 3
"The message is, we are closing the camps and you have to go home," says Aimal Khan, of the Islamabad think tank, the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI).
Abdur Rauf Khan, chief commissioner of Afghan refugees in Islamabad, has denied that Pakistan will use force. Responding Wednesday to claims that four Afghan refugees were killed by Pakistani security services in Balochistan, he said that while not in a position to confirm or deny the reports, "I have it on the authority of my secretary that no such incident took place."
Pakistan's government insists it has worked closely with UNHCR and Afghanistan to devise the terms for repatriation. Afghanistan says it will certainly support the efforts of Afghan refugees to return, but only so long as it is voluntary.
A May UNHCR report, along with other studies, suggests that returnees would likely congregate in a few already overburdened Afghan cities like Kabul, further straining housing stocks, water, and electricity supplies.
Expelled refugees could turn to extremism
While closing camps and deporting undocumented refugees may help in the short term, it will create regional problems down the line, observers say. "There will be some kind of resistance. And the situation in Afghanistan is not that ideal for the refugees to go back," says Mr. Khan of SDPI.
According to the May UNHCR report, 82 percent of Pakistan's refugees do not want to go home. Some three-quarters are below the age of 28, and nearly as many have no formal education – a combination that could make them susceptible to extremism. "You just have uprooted people who are [angry] and who may be more susceptible to creating mischief," says Mr. Fishstein in Kabul.
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