Afghan refugee programme restarts

By Andrew North
BBC correspondent in Kabul

Ms Goislard (left) was shot in her car at point-blank range

The United Nations refugee agency is restarting a programme to repatriate Afghan refugees from Pakistan.

It was suspended last year after the murder of one of its workers, a French national, Bettina Goislard.

The UN says it plans to help 400,000 Afghans come home by the end of this year on top of 1.9 million who have returned over the past two years.

But the security of non-governmental organisations remains a concern after recent attacks on their staff.

Alarm

It is more than four months since Bettina Goislard was shot dead at point-blank range in the city of Ghazni while inside a marked UN vehicle.

There had been a series of attacks on humanitarian workers in the months before her killing, blamed on anti-government militants.

But her death caused particular alarm and an immediate suspension of the agency's operations in southern and eastern Afghanistan.

The impact on the number of Afghans returning home was equally dramatic.

Without the incentive of the support of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, far fewer displaced people have been making the journey from Pakistan, which still hosts about 1.5 million Afghans.

Now the agency hopes it can get the numbers flowing again, giving refugees a small cash grant and money for travel costs. International staff will be working at all the main reception centres.

A spokesman for the refugee agency said they had decided to resume operations after taking extra security precautions and receiving assurances from the Pakistani and Afghan governments of greater efforts to protect aid workers from attack.

But the threat remains high. There have been three separate attacks on humanitarian workers in just over two weeks which have claimed 10 lives.