500 refugee families returning every day to Afghanistan: UNHCR

ISLAMABAD: The return of Afghan refugees from Pakistan is continuing and every day 500 families are going back to their country.

A spokesman of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees told APP that when the refugees return, their identity is verified through the latest IRIS test and after that they are issued registration forms.

Two centres have been established to facilitate the return of refugees. One centre is located in the Chamkani area of Peshawar which is assisting refugees returning from the areas of Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Azad Kashmir and Islamabad. The other centre is set up in Quetta where refugees from Sindh and Balochistan can contact to get a date for their return and complete other formalities.

According to the spokesman, the IRIS test is conducted to ensure that the refugees should not return from Afghanistan after getting financial assistance. Around 300 trucks leave Pakistan daily to transport refugees back to Afghanistan.

The President of Awami National Party (ANP), Asfandyar Wali Khan, said on Sunday that his party will not tolerate harassment of Afghan refugees.He was addressing a condolence reference to mourn the assassination of the former Member Provincial Assembly (MPA) Muhammad Shoaib Khan.

The ANP chief said there was a dire need to revisit the country’s foreign and domestic policies. Shoaib Khan, who was a local ANP leader, was commonly known as Malang Baba. He was killed by unidentified gunmen in his hujra on July 18.

Asfandyar Wali said a meeting of the ANP has been called on September 20-21 to devise a strategy to stop the target killing of innocent workers and leaders of the party.The ANP chief said the Afghan government had informed the Pakistani authorities that they had killed the mastermind of Peshawar’s Army Public School attack on the Afghan soil.

“But the Pakistani authorities have not killed or arrested a single leader of the Afghan Taliban on its soil or handed him over to the Afghan government,” he maintained.The ANP leader said that peace in Pakistan was linked to stability in Afghanistan. “If there is disturbance in Afghanistan, Pakistan would also be in turmoil. Peace and progress in the two countries are linked. If anyone has any doubt, he should read history,” he argued.

—Originally published in The News