GENEVA (Reuters) – Nearly 3 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan and Iran must be encouraged to go home to help stabilize their country and boost prospects for peace, the United Nations said on Wednesday, calling for $1.9 billion in aid to help it happen.
The U.N. refugee agency presented a Geneva conference with a 3-year plan – backed by all three countries – for the voluntary repatriation and reintegration of Afghanis, some of whom have spent decades in exile.
“The ability for refugees to return in safety and dignity and become productive citizens in their communities upon return is also integral to the stability and progress of Afghanistan,” U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said at the start of two-day talks.
Diplomats met on a day when a suicide bomb attack, apparently by the Taliban, killed seven people in Kabul hours after U.S. President Barack Obama visited the city to agree a long-term U.S. role for when foreign troops leave by end-2014.
The U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Afghanistan said the refugee issue was a vital part of securing the country’s long-term future.
“The key issue now is to reduce the many uncertainties facing the people and government of Afghanistan. This (refugee) strategy can be an important part of reducing some of those uncertainties,” Michael Keating told the talks.
More than 5.7 million Afghans have returned home in the last decade following the U.S.-led invasion and they constitute nearly a quarter of the population, according to the UNHCR.
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But fewer than 70,000 went back last year, against 112,600 in 2010, it said. Afghans also constituted the large number of asylum seekers in the West last year, lodging 35,700 requests.
“Afghan refugees have shown that they ‘vote with their feet’ when conditions for return are conducive, they have always wished to go home,” Guterres said.
Jamaher Anwary, Afghanistan’s minister for refugees and repatriation, acknowledged the daunting challenges facing returning refugees, 60 percent of whom continue to live below the standard of their countrymen.
“They are struggling to find work, to provide housing for their families, to get medical care when needed, to enroll their children in school and to find water that is safe to drink,” he said.
Pakistan, which is home to 2 million Afghan refugees, said foreign assistance for them had shrunk over the years while countries hosting them still bore a heavy burden.
“As the international community winds down its engagement in Afghanistan, the return of refugees should be accorded high priority. Refugee return has to be an integral element of a final settlement in Afghanistan,” Shaukat Ullah, Pakistan’s minister of states and frontier regions, said.
“Our preference is for refugee returns to be voluntary, orderly and swift.”
Lakhdar Brahimi, who served as chief of the U.N. assistance mission in Afghanistan until 2004, offered a long-term perspective, saying much had been achieved since 2001.
“But we have to recognize that we failed in the important field of security and in the equally important field of institution-building, especially rebuilding the rule of law,” Brahimi said. “Corruption was allowed to take root and became the fast growing cancer it is today.”
(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)