Afghan refugees suffer as PoR cards expire

PESHAWAR: Thousands of Afghan refugees who are living in Pakistan on legal documents have allegedly suffered at the hands of security personnel after their Proof of Registration (PoR) cards expired on December 31, 2017.

According to data available on the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), about 1.4 million Afghan refugees had legal stay in Pakistan till December 31, 2017. As the Pakistan government had not announced an extension in their stay in the country, their PoR cards had expired automatically. However, an official at the Ministry of States and Frontier Regions (Safron) confirmed that it had drafted and sent a summary to the federal government seeking a further six months stay for Afghan refugees in Pakistan.

The official, who deals with Afghan refugees at the Ministry of Safron told The News that the Pakistan government had agreed to the UNHCR and Afghan government proposal regarding the stay of Afghan refugees during the Istanbul Conference, but now the provincial governments have sought six months extension for the Afghan refugees' stay in their respective provinces. Most of the Afghan refugees are living in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where the National Data Registration Authority (Nadra) registered about 350,000 undocumented Afghans during the registration campaign as Afghan citizens last year. A total of 670,000 unregistered Afghans living in Pakistan without holding the PoR cards were registered all over the country during the campaign.

A representative of the Afghan refugees in Pakistan, Qaad Ali Zadran said he had received complaints from the refugees that the security personnel were harassing them after the expiry of their legal stay in Pakistan on December 31, 2017. "The Afghan refugees have been confined to homes as they could not move due to fear of arrest at the hands of the police and the security agencies," he claimed, adding Afghan refugees in the Punjab province were most worried about their stay and movement.

An official at the Afghan Consulate in Peshawar, Abdul Hameed Jalili, said Pakistan government should extend by one year the stay of the Afghan refugees with legal documents as the UNHCR's voluntary repatriation process had been suspended due to winter season. "The Afghan government wants respectable return of the Afghans to their country. Under the international law the Pakistan government must extend stay of the Afghan refugees," he said.

He added that the Afghan people and government were grateful to Pakistan for hosting millions of Afghan refugees for over three decades. It may be mentioned that Afghan refugees have already availed extension in their stay five times. The government had introduced the PoR card system for the registered refugees to legalise their stay and protect them from harassment at the hands of law-enforcement agencies.