Between 2002 and 2012, he said, UNHCR Pakistan had facilitated voluntary repatriation of 3.8 million refugees. This year, UNHCR had so far assisted 71,841 persons to return to Afghanistan, he said. He said that voluntary repatriation remained the preferred solution for refugees world-wide, adding that most Afghan refugees had voluntarily repatriate to Afghanistan when they thought it was safe to return to their country. He, however, pointed out that the 1.65 million Afghan refugees still remained in Pakistan and were a residual caseload experiencing challenges to their prospects for return.
He said that as many as 1,807 families, comprising 9,793 individuals, had repatriated since the beginning of the Voluntary Repatriation 'Surge' operations on October 23 this year, which is more than double the figure during the equivalent period in 2011. The UNHCR's country representative said that the agency had no evidence to support that any registered Afghan refugee was involved in the ongoing militancy in the country or drug trafficking.
To another question, he said that the government of Pakistan had never forcibly deported any refugee. Referring to the Population Profiling, Vetting and Response (or PPVR) project, he said that data collection began late in 2010 and continued in 2011 in 20 districts of Pakistan, covering around 65 percent of the entire Afghan population, over 135,000 households, or nearly a million Afghans.
"We now have extremely detailed comprehensive PPVR data on socio-economic issues such as health, education, housing, water and sanitation, livelihood, skills and remittances; on migration patterns (including the year of arrival, and the intention to return to Afghanistan); on investor potential and other protection needs," he said. In addition, he said that the UNHCR also had information on opportunities and skills that the refugee population in Pakistan would bring to their home country when they did decide to return.
He emphasised that the government policy-makers need this clear profile of refugees to manage the solution-finding process. "UN agencies, humanitarian and development partners, and NGOs, need this profile to best address the needs of the current 1.65 million refugees still in Pakistan," he added.
He said that hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees wanted to return to their homeland, adding that almost one out of every five or (17%) of the households indicated an intention to return to Afghanistan. Earlier, the Minister for State and Frontier Regions said that the government along with UNHCR was trying that the Afghan refugees should go back voluntarily by December 31 this year to their home country. Referring to his recent visit to Kabul, he said that Afghan President Hamid Karzai, during his meeting, made and commitment to call upon all Afghans currently living Pakistan to return and take part in development activities.