Focus on returning refugees

With hope in the air after two decades of conflict, many Afghan refugees are weighing whether to return to their homeland, or remain where they are. With the newly established interim administration now in place in Kabul, Afghan aid workers say a trickle of returnees has started. "People in small numbers have already started moving into Afghanistan," Batin Shah Safi, an Afghan aid worker in Peshawar, the provincial capital of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP), told IRIN on Thursday. More than one million Afghan refugees live in Peshawar near the border with Afghanistan. If the trickle becomes a surge, Peshawar is where it will be felt most. Safi said most people returning were from northern Afghanistan and that many anticipated getting work with the new government due to favourable contacts in the interim administration. The 57-year-old former lecturer was determined to go back as soon as his agency's office was established inside Afghanistan. "Over the past 22 years I had many chances to settle in the West but I preferred to stay with my people in the refugee camps here and am anxious to serve my country again," he explained. Commenting on the changing atmosphere, he said many Afghans were willing to go back. Of some 86 female teachers working with his organisation six had resigned and headed back to Kabul, since the establishment of the interim administration on Saturday. Similarly, out of some 180 male teachers, two followed their female colleagues. "This is just the beginning, most of the people will repatriate in spring," he added. "The better educated people of Kabul are the first to initiate repatriation," Safi maintained, adding that most of these people were skilled and their repatriation might create a dearth of trained people such as doctors and teachers. This would motivate others to follow. He pointed out that in some Afghan neighbourhoods of Peshawar such as Hayatabad and Police Colony, some Afghans had already left for their homeland. However, he pointed out that those Afghans depending on agriculture for a living might not return soon. "Only the people living close to rivers and other irrigation sources will return and even that will take time because of the enormous amounts of land mines all over Afghanistan," he said, adding, that traders and other entrepreneurs would carefully gauge the situation before deciding on any relocation. Some Afghans living further a field were also optimistic at the prospect of returning to their homeland. Zalmay Hewadmal, a 50-year-old former academic at the Academy of Sciences in Kabul, told IRIN from Germany that most of the Afghans above the age of 30 were anxiously waiting to return to their country. "Some Afghans have even applied for Pakistani visas to get close to Afghanistan so that they can move into Afghanistan whenever security permits," he said. Hewadmal added that apart from refugees and asylum seekers, Afghans with permanent citizenship of developed countries were also weighing their options. "Only the security situation prevents people from initiating their journeys back home," he explained, asserting that the presence of international peacekeepers was necessary to guarantee security till Afghanistan's national army was re-established. Asked whether the Afghans returning from the West would easily reintegrate into the Afghan society, he said it might be a hurdle but it would not be a major problem. "Most of the urban centres had exposure to western culture prior to the Taliban," Hewadmal said. "The returnees from the West will be welcome home if they show a genuine desire to build their war-shattered nation," he maintained, adding he himself intended to return to Pakistan early next month from where he would move to Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the UN refugee agency UNHCR reported that following the installation of the interim administration in Kabul more than 5,000 Afghans were returning daily. Spokeswoman for UNHCR, Fatoumata Kaba told IRIN on Thursday: "Spontaneous repatriation is taking place. Our staff have counted some 15,000 Afghans crossing back to Afghanistan at Chaman [the border crossing between Pakistan and Afghanistan in south central Pakistan]." She said UNHCR has recorded some 35,000 people returning to Afghanistan in December. "The Towr Kham border crossing point in Tribal areas of NWFP has reopened with some 2,000 Afghans returning to Kabul and eastern Afghanistan daily," she maintained. Kaba explained that UNHCR was planning to reopen the Islam Qila office in western Afghanistan near the Iranian border, to monitor the repatriation of Afghan refugees from Iran. More Afghan refugees were repatriating from Iran, she added. UNHCR has reported the repatriation of some 60,000 Afghan refugees from Pakistan and Iran since early November. But more than two million Afghan refugees remain in both countries.