Afghans Go Home, Not Always Willingly

Nesa does not even try to hide her anger and bitterness. The 68-year old spent 20 years as a refugee in Pakistan, having fled with her two sons from the Soviet occupation and the ensuing conflict. But just a few days ago, her life in a refugee camp just inside Pakistan came to an abrupt halt.

“Pakistani police came with tractors and knocked down our house,” she said. “All of our belongings were buried in the rubble. They beat up my sons. I pray to God to curse Pakistan, and make life for its people as hard as our lives are,” she said, shaking her fists and weeping.

Nesa has come to the Kabul office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR, seeking help. There are hundreds of others like her, wandering aimlessly around the large compound or clustered in groups, sharing pieces of information.

They must register with Afghanistan’s Ministry for Repatriation and Refugees to claim benefits. But, according to Nesa, the aid is slow in coming. Aside from a modest payment for transport costs, she said, she has received no help at all.

“No one will help the poor like us,” she said, tears coursing down her wrinkled cheeks. “Only death will save us.”

Despite numerous requests from IWPR, the Pakistani embassy in Kabul refused to comment on reports that refugee camps are been forcibly closed down.

Afghanistan’s three decades of war and upheaval led to a massive migration of its citizens. Millions of Afghans left their homes and fled to neighbouring Pakistan and Iran, while some were able to relocate to Europe, Britain, and the United States.

The UN says that over four million refugees have returned since the fall of the Taleban in late 2001, but at least 2.5 million remain in Pakistan, close to a million in Iran, and hundreds of thousands in other countries.

In recent months, however, there has been a sudden surge in returning refugees, attributed in part to the Pakistan government’s decision, on security grounds, to close all remaining refugee camps in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas which border Afghanistan.

More than 20,000 families returned to Afghanistan in one six-week period alone, leading the UNHCR to acknowledge publicly that it was having difficulty dealing with the increased flow of refugees.

Nadir Farhad, a spokesman for UNHCR, rejects claims by returning Afghans that they have been forcibly expelled. While acknowledging that many border camps in Pakistan have been closed, he insisted that the government in Islamabad had given refugees the choice of moving to other camps within Pakistan or voluntarily returning to their homeland. They even gave them six weeks’ lead time, he added.

“We have signed agreements with Iran, Pakistan and some European countries that the return should take place voluntarily," he said.

The UNHCR stands ready to assist returnees, he insisted. "Every immigrant who returns to Afghanistan will receive [a transport allowance of] between four and 37 dollars, depending on how far it is to their region,” he said.

In addition, they receive a resettlement payment of 12 dollars per person. In the past, the UN gave returnees food and tents, he said, but now their resources are stretched to the limit.

But some returnees like Shairaz Khan, 35, originally from Kunduz, say their departure from Pakistan was anything but voluntary.

Sitting with his family at the UNHCR refugee centre in Kabul, his belongings scattered around him on the open ground and his children wearing dirty, dusty clothes, Shairaz said he had recently returned to Afghanistan from a refugee camp near the Pakistani capital Islamabad.

"I lived for 21 years in the Kacha Abad camp but then the police began to harass us, saying that if we did not leave they would destroy our houses,” he told IWPR. “They said they’d destroy our houses no matter where we were in Pakistan, so we had no choice but to go back to Afghanistan.”

Between April 2002 and August 2005, the government of Afghanistan signed nine tripartite agreements with the UNHCR and host countries, such as Iran and Pakistan. The agreements set forth the conditions for the refugees’ return, principally that repatriation should be voluntary and gradual.

Mustafa, 21, says he was expelled from Iran two months ago with his parents, two brothers, and a sister. He told IWPR that the authorities there threatened him with fines of up to 200 dollars if he did not leave the country.

“We are being mistreated by the government of Iran,” he said angrily. “Sometimes they even beat us up.”

Mohammad Raza Bahrami, Iran’s ambassador to Kabul, denied that his government was forcibly repatriating legitimate refugees. However, he added, Afghans who came to Iran after the tripartite agreement of 2002 are considered illegal immigrants, and hence are subject to deportation.

"If the government of Afghanistan arrests a foreign national for entering the country illegally, they put him in prison. We do not; we simply send him back to Afghanistan,” he said.

There are media reports of more than 800 families wandering in the deserts of Farah province with no shelter after being forcibly expelled from Iran, although it is unclear whether the authorities there considered them refugees or illegal migrants.

For its part, the Afghan government appears have neither the resources to adequately assist returning refugees nor the political clout to improve their conditions abroad and stem the tide of returnees.

Naweed Ahmad Moayez, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, conceded that the estimated 2.5 million refugees still living in Pakistan are facing severe problems.

“While the government appreciates the help and hospitality of neighbouring countries during the war years, the conditions facing Afghan emigrants abroad have deteriorated since the fall of the Taleban,” he said.

According to Moyaez, the ministry has made their plight a priority, and is working with host countries to explore solutions.

In August, the Minister for Repatriation and Refugees, Mohammad Azzam Daadfar, signed an agreement with Pakistan’s minister of immigrant affairs on ways of returning the refugees. “We agreed that their return would be gradual and voluntary,” he said.

Moayez expressed regret that Afghans were now experiencing rough treatment at the hands of neighbouring countries. "We are against every kind of action or decision by any government with regard to forcibly returning migrants," he told IWPR.

Engineer Mohammad Samie, a senior official in the Afghan refugee ministry, agrees that people should return on a voluntary basis, over a period of time. However, he conceded this was not always the case, and said some 200,000 people now in Afghanistan were believed to have been subject to forcible expulsion from their place of residence abroad.

For those who choose to return, the refugee ministry has plans to distribute land in 20 provinces and 35 towns throughout the country. According to Samie, “We have distributed some 200,000 plots of land since the fall of the Taleban.”

Salima Ghafari is an IWPR reporter in Kabul.