Starting afresh in Afghanistan

Refugees fled from years of fighting in Afghanistan

By Owen Bennett-Jones

"It's a beautiful refugee camp - it really is."

It was a strange turn of phrase but it came from a woman who has seen more than her fair share of camps - she works for the UN refugee agency - and she had a point. Compared to many, Akora Hatak, just outside the Pakistani city of Peshawar, is a relatively decent place to live.

Home to thousands of Afghan refugees, it has been there for more than 20 years. The Afghans were driven out by the Russian occupation of their country - some have been living in Pakistan ever since.

To me one grain of this soil is worth any amount of money and hardship. We will trust in God and restart our lives here.

Diam Khan

The mud houses they have built are spacious. Trees have matured in the walled courtyards outside each home. Many of the buildings have electricity - enough, say, for one bulb and a fan to relieve the excruciating heat of summer in Peshawar.

Don't get me wrong - this is no paradise. The camp has no drainage and, especially in the summer months, conditions are unhealthy. But by refugee camp standards it could be a lot worse.

But many of the Afghans at Akora Hatak want to go back home. Diam Khan, a 50-year-old man, tells a typical Afghan story. He left his village outside Kabul over 20 years ago when the Russians moved in.

He fought with the mujahedeen for some years and then settled in Pakistan - he has been working as a day labourer ever since. He has one child of 16 who was not only born in Pakistan but has never seen Afghanistan - he has been a refugee all his life.

Land to reclaim

So Diam Khan had decided to take himself and 15 of his immediate relatives back. He still had land in Afghanistan, he said, and he wanted to reclaim it.

The UN helps facilitate such returns. It offers families around $100 in cash, six bags of wheat and a plastic tarpaulin if they say they will go back. The target is to ensure the return of around 100,000 refugees each year. It is an attempt to make a dent in the huge Afghan refugee population in Pakistan - which by some estimates is 2m strong.

While some return home, others continue to leave Afghanistan

So when I met Diam Khan he was preparing to move house - literally. His sons were ripping it apart, to get the wooden roof beams which they planned to use in their new home in Afghanistan. And within an hour or two they were loading the beams onto an old Bedford truck. It was big, brightly painted and packed.

Four families clambered on board with all their possessions, including wooden beams, a couple of donkeys, and countless bags. And then, they were off. The truck was part of a convoy with 500 refugees in all. The journey back home had begun.

Busy border post

The convoy moved up through the Khyber Pass - the classic gateway to and from Afghanistan. The frontier crossing point is at Torkam: it may be a remote spot deep in tribal territory, but it's busy enough for all that. Thousands of people were crossing the border - totally unregulated. There was no passport check, no queues, nothing at all.

I have met BBC colleagues in some pretty unlikely places around the world. But I certainly did not expect to do so at Torkam. I was wrong.

"Hello Owen, how are you?" It was a producer from the BBC's Pashto Service in London. His father had recently died in the UK and he was bringing the body back for burial in Afghan soil. He was travelling in a mini van. I could see the wooden coffin pushed up against the window and resting rather precariously on top of a row of seats.

Some refugees' children have never seen Afghanistan

No sooner had we met than the convoy was on the move, and we were into Afghanistan. The trucks forced their way through crowds of heavily laden people moving on foot the other way.

While Diam Khan's convoy was taking 500 people back to Afghanistan, far more people seemed to be leaving the country. After 20 years of war, conditions are so bad that many are giving up and moving to Pakistan. Indeed, some Afghans take the UN assistance package and go on a convoy, then slip back to Pakistan.

Derelict home

But Diam Khan seemed set on returning for good. As the truck moved closer to its destination, we passed hundreds of fields full of poppies with their pale blue, white and red flowers - the poppies which are the source of so much of the world's heroin.

And so onto the village of Khaka Jabba itself. To be honest, when I saw it, I wondered why Diam Khan had decided to return.

It is surrounded by smashed Russian tanks. There are signs all over the place warning of minefields: a clear threat to his younger children who may - doubtless will - roam and play in the hills around the village. His house was nothing more than mud and rubble. It had been bombed out of existence by the Russians, and had years of decay on top of that.

As he walked through the ruins of his home, Diam Khan told me that there was no water in the village, no doctor, no school.

"So why have you come back?" I asked.

"How long can I live in a foreign country?" he replied.

"I have returned with honour and dignity."

And then he clutched at the dry sun-parched soil and rolled a bit of earth between his thumb and finger.

"Besides," he said, "to me one grain of this soil is worth any amount of money and hardship. We will trust in God and restart our lives here."