MoRR Calls Mass Return of Afghan Refugees from Pakistan Catastrophic

The Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation (MoRR) says the mass return of all Afghan refugees from Pakistan at one time is “catastrophic”.

Minister of Refugees and Repatriation, Sayed Hussain Alemi Balkhi has declared that preprations have been taken for the return of Afghan refugees and the ministry is trying to solve the problem of a mass return with the mediation of the United Nations.

Many believe that Pakistan wants to use the situation of Afghan refugees against the Afghan government.

However, politicians say Pakistan’s recent decision for return of Afghan refugees has a political aspect.

United Nations agencies and human rights organisations have blamed fear of harassment and oppression by the Pakistani authorities, or in the case of undocumented refugees, fear of expulsion for the mass returns.

Pakistani hostility towards Afghan refugees had already been growing, but has strengthened markedly as friendship between Afghanistan and Pakistan’s old enemy, India, blossomed this year.

Pakistan has been a generous, albeit sometimes reluctant host to Afghan refugees for almost four decades. Since 2001, more than 3.9 million Afghan refugees have returned home from Pakistan.

There was a huge push to bring the refugees home by UNHCR, international donors and the Afghan government after the fall of the Taliban it was seen as proof that the new regime was popular and in the first years after the Taliban regime was overthrown, conditions also seemed amenable.