IRAN AND HCR TO REPARTRIATE AFGHAN REFUGEES.
TEHRAN 20TH Feb. (IPS) Iran and the United Nations High Commissariat for the Refugees (UNHCR) agreed on a "repatriation and reintegration programme" concerning the Afghan refugees living in Iran, the French daily "Le Monde" said quoting sources of the Paris-based Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF, meaning Doctors Without Borders) that works with refugees.
Out of a peak of 4.5, five millions in the height of the Afghan internal war, the number of the Afghan refugees living in Iran, mostly in the Khorasan Province that borders with Afghanistan and Turkemenistan decreased to its present level of over 1.5 million, made mostly of Sh'ia Hazara and Tajiks.
Sources at the Tehran offices of the UN say considering that half of the Afghans living in Iran are not registered and that there is a constant coming and going, the total number of refugees has never been established correctly.
A great majority of the Afghan refugees live in camps, some of them around the city of Mash-had, a pilgrimage destination for the Shi'a Muslims, others are scattered throughout the country.
According to Mr. Abdel Rahman Ghandour, Head of the MSF in Iran, the "programme" that has been worked out between the UNCHR, the Iranian Bureau of Aliens and Immigration Affairs (BIFA) and the Taleban that controls more than 85 per cent of Afghanistan is aimed at facilitating the return of those of the refugees who want to go back in the one hand and help the regularisation of those who, on valid political grounds, could not return, on the other.
To help the refugees to go back, the UNHCR and the Iranian government are required to provide free transportation and proper travel documents plus a basic sum of money and necessary foodstuff once arrived at destination, meaning their villages or towns of origin, Mr. Ghandour explained.
One stumbling bloc for those choosing repatriation is that the criteria they would have to fit are not clear. More over, only Iranian officials would interrogate those who would opt for staying back in Iran.
"But once this stage accomplished successfully, the refugees would get necessary papers allowing them to work and eventually go to other regions of Iran where the government has quotas for Afghan refugees", Mr. Ghandour added.
In fact, pointed out "Le Monde", a majority of the Afghans living in Iran and who are employed in the construction industry have no document, subjected to exploitation by Iranian businessmen.
Because of their staggering number, they are also regarded as one of the cause of unemployment and therefore subject to popular vindication, treated as thieves and murderers.
This population live in very bad conditions, paid poorly, exploited by the Afghan mafia that uses them for drug traficking. To get in Iran, one has to pay between 130 to 500 US Dollars, a huge sum in a country where the average salary is less than US 20 per month.
Next to the Afghans, Iran is also hosting another half a million refugees made of Iraqi Kurds and Shi'a Muslims who have fled the wrath of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, placing Iran as at the top of the list of refugee taker nations in the world. ENDS AFQAN REFUGEES 20200