Monday, January 26, 2015
Kabul (BNA) Janan Mosazai, the Afghan ambassador to Pakistan said the other day that the national unity government of Afghanistan was taking measures for the return of 1.6 million registered Afghan refugees from Pakistan in the shortest possible time, BNA reported.
“There is a three-way agreement between Afghanistan, Pakistan and UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and all three signatories agree on voluntary, dignified and gradual return of Afghan Refugees from Pakistan,” Ambassador Mosazai told media.
Janan said that Afghanistan was ‘incomplete in its essence’ without the homecoming of its people, who had to leave the country decades ago because of security conditions. He said the Afghan government had welcomed five million of its refugees from Pakistan and Iran since the fall of Taliban, which he described as the ‘largest return of refugees to their homeland in history’.
“Refugees’ arrival has slowed down for some time, but this issue is our key priority on which we fully focus. The fabric of the Afghan society is not complete without our refugee brothers and sisters. We are improving our environment to encourage their return so that they see no uncertain future and no shortage of basic amenities,” said Mosazai. Ambassador said at present 1.6m registered Afghan refugees were residing in Pakistan, most of whom lived in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan while their number in Sindh was 65,000. He, however, was not sure about the number of unregistered Afghan refugees, which he guessed might between 400,000 and one million.
