Afghan refugee looks to the future

By Haroon Rashid
BBC correspondent in Chitral, northern Pakistan

Thousands of Afghan refugees, currently living in northern Pakistan, have been preparing to return to their homeland.

Mohammad Jalil hopes to build a new life in Afghanistan

Refugee camps in the Chitral district were once home to nearly 50,000 people, escaping from Afghanistan.

Mohammad Jalil has lived in a camp in Kesu for the last 20 years and is now planning to go back the country he left when he was only six years-old.

But, like thousands of others, he is returning with few possessions to an uncertain future.

When I met him in the remote refugee camp on Sunday, Mohammad was preparing for a journey that would be as significant as the one his family made 20 years ago.

After completing paperwork for the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) he spent the rest of day dismantling the house in Kesu Refugee Camp that was supposed to be his temporary accommodation.

Looking forward

Kesu is situated on the banks of the River Kabul and is about 40 kilometres (25 miles) from Chitral.

I spent the best years of my life here

Mohammad Jamil

"I came with my family to Kesu when I was only six," says Mohammad but he is looking forward to returning to Afghanistan.

Although life has often been difficult, the Persian speaking Tajik from northern Badakhsan province was grateful for the help he has received.

"I'm thankful to the Pakistanis for showing splendid hospitality to us," he said.

Mohammad - now a father of three children - gathered together all his possessions on the roadside, along with many other people from the camp, and waited for a truck

Amongst his most prized items of personal property were the wooden doors, windows and trunks of a stone-built house he once lived in.

He hopes to use them to build a new house when he arrives in Afghanistan.

After the fall of the Taleban Government, many of the thousands of refugees decided to return to the neighbouring provinces of Badakhshan, Nooristan, Kunar and Takhar.

The area is now home to only about 18,000 Afghans.

Mohammad Jamil has seen good and bad times in the small camp.

"I spent the best years of my life here," he says. "My greatest moments, my youth."

High-tech testing

His family had to undergo the UNHCR's state-of-the-art iris recognition test to prove they had never sought money before from the organisation.

These tests - being conducted by a mobile iris unit at Kesu camp - are based on the same principle as fingerprints in that no two irises are the same.

Reconstructing Afghanistan is a mammoth task

By Sunday evening another 175 eager Afghan families had registered for the first repatriation from Chitral this season.

"We expected the number to swell to nearly 200 by Monday morning," UNHCR's local official Malang Jan told the BBC.

He said the lack of opportunity in the region was the main cause of the refugees return.

"Life is no better here. They think maybe things have changed in their own country," he said.

Initially the repatriation was slow when it began formally in mid-March.

"A prolonged winter and the Iraqi war delayed the repatriation for a few weeks," the UN refugee agency's Regional Chief Ms Masti said.

She said she expected the rate of return to pick up soon as it is the end of the academic year in schools in Pakistan.

Despite the situation being far from perfect in their country, the increasing return of refugees shows their growing confidence in the future of Afghanistan.