Afghan refugees to be relocated

Refugees who return will have much work to do

The United Nations refugee agency is expected to begin moving some 19,000 Afghan refugees from a precarious makeshift camp at Chaman on the Pakistan border.

A UNHCR spokeswoman, Maki Shinohara, said an agreement was reached with the Pakistani Government about a month ago, to close the camp and relocate the refugees because of security concerns.

The operation will start with the removal of the first group of around 100 families.

They will eventually be re-established at either the Zhare Dasht temporary camp near the main southern Afghan city of Kandahar or to a camp in Pakistan.

Nearly 200,000 Afghan refugees have returned home from Pakistan and Iran since January this year.

Last month, the UNHCR and the governments of Iran and Afghanistan signed an agreement to help repatriate refugees in Iran.

Problems

Most of the refugees who have come back to Afghanistan have returned from Pakistan where they had fled to escape the fighting back home.

But many of them find that they are returning to a country devastated after years of fighting with a shortage of houses, jobs and food.

Added to that is the growing sense of insecurity.

In the north, clashes have been taking place between rival warlord factions while there are fears of a resurgence of former Taleban forces in the south and east.

Aid agencies say the growing violence threatens to disrupt their efforts to provide relief to ordinary Afghans and rebuild the country after more than 20 years of war.