KABUL (SW) – Officials from the Ministry of Repatriations and Refugees (MoRR) have stated that before the arrival of winter, after registering and biometric data collection of 5,000 internally displaced families, they will be transferred to their provinces.
Khalil al-Rahman Haqqani, the Acting Minister of MoRR, said that a mechanism has been arranged for the return of these internally displaced people, through which they will be provided with the necessary facilities in their provinces.
“We have prepared a mechanism with our international partners, and 5,000 families are in contact to return to their provinces. Today, in the first phase, 200 families will be transferred to Kunduz after registration and biometric data collection, and 1,000 more families will be transferred in the second phase,” he added.
Sardar Shirzad, head of the Department of Internal Displaced People at the MoRR, says that 67,000 families currently wish to voluntarily return to their provinces; however, due to a lack of sufficient resources, their return has not been facilitated.
He adds: “Due to a lack of resources, we decided to transfer 40,000 families to their provinces. However, we were unable to do so, and practically this time, we plan to transfer 5,000 internally displaced persons to their homes in the provinces.”
In recent years, war, food insecurity, and climate change are some of the key factors that have forced many citizens to leave their homes and seek refuge in other parts of the country.
Meanwhile, some internally displaced persons returning to their provinces say they have no shelter there and are facing many difficulties.
Bas Bibi, an internally displaced person, said: “It is cold, and winter is coming; we have nothing, and the shelter we had, has been destroyed in the past few years. We are asking the government for help.”
Allah Gul, another internally displaced person, asks the de-facto government to provide him with shelter and job opportunities. “We have been displaced once, please don’t make us refugees again because we have nothing to live in there, and if you are committed to your promises, we will follow you,” he said.
Meanwhile, the officials from the Ministry of Repatriations and Refugees say that they will build shelters for these internally displaced people in their provinces and will also provide them with job opportunities.
According to the statistics of the Ministry of Repatriations and Refugees, in the past three years, one million internally displaced persons have voluntarily returned to their provinces, and currently, there are 2.6 million internally displaced persons across Afghanistan.
