DATE=6/30/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=AFGHAN REFUGEES / PAKISTAN (L-ONLY)
NUMBER=2-236938
BYLINE=AYAZ GUL
DATELINE=ISLAMABAD
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: About one-thousand Afghan refugees have left
Pakistan to return home after more than 20 years in
exile. As Ayaz Gul reports from Islamabad, the
repatriation of these refugees is taking place under a
United Nations-sponsored program that began earlier
this year.
TEXT: The United Nations says the 200 Afghan families
are in trucks heading to Kandahar, in southern
Afghanistan. It says each of the families is being
given about 100 dollars and 300 kilograms of wheat by
the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the
U-N-H-C-R.
Ruby Rehman, a U-N-H-C-R representative in Pakistan's
southern city of Quetta, says the repatriation is
taking place under an agreement the United Nations
signed with Pakistan and the Taleban authorities in
Afghanistan in February. Some 100-thousand refugees
are to be resettled in Afghanistan under the agreement
by the end of this year.
/// REHMAN ACT ///
Since January 1st and up to 31st of May, 5,330
Afghan refugee families have already been
repatriated. We do not motivate or we do not
push them for repatriation, rather they approach
us and request repatriation, and only then the
U-N-H-C-R facilitates [the process]. So it's
kind of a 100-percent voluntary repatriation
program.
/// END ACT ///
Millions of Afghans were driven out of their country
by a decade-long Soviet occupation of Afghanistan that
ended in 1989. At the peak of the world's largest
refugee crisis, about six million people fled the
country. About one-and-a-half million are still
living in Pakistan. Another two million are
reportedly living in Iran.
The on-going civil war in Afghanistan and the recent
drought has discouraged the many Afghan refugees from
returning to their homes. (Signed)
NEB/AG/WTW
30-Jun-2000 10:05 AM EDT (30-Jun-2000 1405 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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