Pakistan to register 1.4 million Afghan refugees in 4 months
Pakistan intends to register 1.4 million unregistered Afghan refugees over the course of four months.
“We have agreed to form a committee to ensure registration of unregistered Afghan refugees which will be completed in four months,” Pakistani Minister for States and Frontier Regions (SAFRON) Abdul Qadir Baloch said at a press conference with his Afghan counterpart, Sayed Hossein Alimi Balkhi, in Islamabad on Wednesday.
The Pakistani minister added that representatives of Afghanistan, Pakistan and UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) would contact global donor agencies for help in repatriating the refugees once the registration process is complete.
On February 23, an official from the Pakistani Ministry of States and Frontier Region set a deadline for all the Afghan refugees in Pakistan to be repatriated by December at the latest.
However, the minister said an extension of deadline might be necessary due to the “difficult” task.
The decision was made as part of a security overhaul after pro-Taliban militants stormed a school in Peshawar and killed nearly 150 students last December.
Pakistan’s authorities view the Afghan nationals with suspicion and routinely accuse them of harboring militants.
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), more than 30,000 Afghans living in Pakistan had returned home since the start of the year because of coming under intense scrutiny after the Peshawar school attack.
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