FYI: 1 MILLION AFGHANS IN PAKISTAN . . . . .

[Henk Elegeert]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

FYI:

"1 MILLION AFGHANS IN PAKISTAN REGISTER IN UN-BACKED
OPERATION TO HELP REPATRIATION

New York, Dec 18 2006  1:00PM

Nearly 1 million of the 2.4 million Afghans still in
Pakistan after fleeing the 1979 Soviet invasion and
later factional fighting have now been registered in
a United Nations-backed operation by the Government
of Pakistan that seeks to yield valuable information
for continued repatriation efforts.

“After a slow start during Ramadan, the pace of
registration is increasing exponentially,” UN
Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) spokesman
Adrian Edwards told a news <"
http://www.unama-afg.org/news/_pb/_english/2006/_december/Press%20briefing%20transcript%20-%20Eng%20-%2018%20December.pdf">briefing
in Kabul, the Afghan capital today of the operation,
which provides official identification cards.

The 10-week exercise, the largest such operation the
UN High Commission for Refugees (<"
http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/home?id=search&results=web&sort=fulldate&query=Afghanistan">UNHCR)
has ever been involved in, began 15 October and runs
until 31 December, with the UN in both a supporting
and monitoring role in the process, which involves
collecting bio-data, fingerprints and digital
photographs.

“Registration facilitates the management of a
population in any country, be it refugees or
non-refugees,” UNHCR said. “It will help all the
stakeholders to facilitate repatriation next year,
regulate and manage the temporarily stay of Afghans
for the duration of their cards’ validity and
provide information to help plan the future of this
population.

“It also helps the Government of Afghanistan to
identify needs in major areas of return and design
developmental programmes to make sure returns of
Afghans are sustainable,” the agency added.

The European Commission, United States and United
Kingdom have contributed towards the $6 million
registration exercise that is provided free for
eligible Afghans.
Even after more than 2.8 million Afghans returned
home over the last five years Pakistan still hosts
one of the largest groups of refugees in the world;
there are 1 million Afghans living in camps and more
than 1.4 million living in urban areas.

Since 2002 over 1.5 million Afghans have also
returned home from Iran, 850,000 with UNHCR's
assistance. More than 1 million others are still
estimated to be living there.

  2006-12-18 00:00:00.000
___________________

For more details go to UN News Centre at
http://www.un.org/news
To listen to news and in-depth programmes from UN
Radio go to: http://radio.un.org/

"

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