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ISLAMABAD (SW): The government of Pakistan has kicked off new project to develop database for the documentation of Afghan refugees in the country.
The country’s National Database & Registration Authority (NADRA) has inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Ministry of States and Frontier Regions (SAFRON) in this regard. According to the officials, the Afghan government has also been taken on board.
According to the deal, NADRA will take around ten months to complete the database, and will establish around 21 centers and mobile units for documentation of the Afghan refugees. These centers are expected to function from first week of July while all 21 centers will be operational by August. “This is a carrot-and-stick approach. If the Afghan nationals get themselves registered, they will not be harassed by police," Dawn news has quoted Lt Gen (rtd) Abdul Qadir Baloch, the federal minister for states and frontier regions, as saying.
Growing persecution of Afghan refugees in Pakistan has forced up to a million of them to go back to their conflict-riddled country.
There are around 3 million — documented and undocumented — Afghan refugees living in Pakistan, making it the largest refugee population in the world after the Syrians in Turkey. The Human Rights Watch (HRW) in a report on alleged forced returns of Afghan refugees, has urged Islamabad to avoid recreating conditions in 2017 that coerced the involuntary return of refugees to Afghanistan in 2016.
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