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Last batch of Afghans returned from Pakistan
Islamabad, July 22: A UN refugee agency convoy today carried the last 391 Afghans from a makeshift camp on the Afghan-Pakistani border that once housed 26,000 asylum seekers to a new settlement inside Afghanistan.
Islamabad, July 22: A UN refugee agency convoy today carried the last 391 Afghans from a makeshift camp on the Afghan-Pakistani border that once housed 26,000 asylum
seekers to a new settlement inside Afghanistan.
The departure of the final convoy of trucks marked the end of the "waiting area", which formed spontaneously when Pakistan closed its border to fresh refugee arrivals in February 2002, according to a statement by United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) from Chamman.
The trucks hired by UNHCR carried the Afghans, from 102 families, to Zhare Dasht, a settlement for internally displaced Afghans, near the city of Kandahar. It brought the total number of people moved from the barren stretch of ground to 18,590.
After Pakistan closed its border to halt a flow of Afghan asylum seekers triggered by the US-led attack to unseat the Taliban, some 26,000 Afghans were left stranded in the "waiting area." The inhospitable conditions were demonstrated as the convoy departed today with temperatures around 40 celsius and strong winds whipping up dust. About 7,000 residents were moved to Zhare Dasht last year and in May UNHCR and the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan agreed that the area, always considered unsuitable as a refugee camp, would be cleared before the end of July.
The nearly 20,000 residents still there were given a choice of returning to their original homes in Afghanistan, moving to one of the refugee camps that were established in Pakistan in the months before the closing of the border or moving to Zhare Dasht. Almost all took up the offer, with the rest drifting away from the area on their own.
Bureau Report
The trucks hired by UNHCR carried the Afghans, from 102 families, to Zhare Dasht, a settlement for internally displaced Afghans, near the city of Kandahar. It brought the total number of people moved from the barren stretch of ground to 18,590.
After Pakistan closed its border to halt a flow of Afghan asylum seekers triggered by the US-led attack to unseat the Taliban, some 26,000 Afghans were left stranded in the "waiting area." The inhospitable conditions were demonstrated as the convoy departed today with temperatures around 40 celsius and strong winds whipping up dust. About 7,000 residents were moved to Zhare Dasht last year and in May UNHCR and the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan agreed that the area, always considered unsuitable as a refugee camp, would be cleared before the end of July.
The nearly 20,000 residents still there were given a choice of returning to their original homes in Afghanistan, moving to one of the refugee camps that were established in Pakistan in the months before the closing of the border or moving to Zhare Dasht. Almost all took up the offer, with the rest drifting away from the area on their own.
Bureau Report