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Refugees
Food handouts for the displaced.
the voluntary process. There was no evidence of the authorities using coercive
force to send the registered Afghans back. The UNHCR also acknowledged
that there had not been any case of Pakistan forcibly sending back a registered
refugee.
While voluntary repatriation remains the preferred durable solution for
refugees worldwide. It remained the only durable solution for almost all the
Afghans in Pakistan.
The overall environment for Afghans in Pakistan continued to be far less
welcoming than it had been in the early years following their arrival in Pakistan
in the 1980s and in subsequent years as they had fled the armed conflict and
lawlessness in their country.
In addition to demands from the Pakistani authorities for Afghan refugees
to leave at the earliest, Afghans were repeatedly blamed for a rise in crime and
painted as a threat to national security. Besides local residents, the judiciary
also repeatedly called for early repatriation of all Afghan nationals residing in
Pakistan.
This year again the number of internally displaced persons remained well
over one million. While the majority were conflict displaced from Federally
Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), a severe drought also forced around half a
million people from their homes in Sindh. Some displacement was also reported
from the province due to flooding for a third consecutive year.
Nothing was done to bring the half a million Pakistanis stranded in
Bangladesh since 1971. Even more disturbing was the fact that their plight did