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UNHCR's Operation in Afghanistan: Donor Update 3 Dec 2003

Recent Developments
On 16 November, UNHCR staff-member Bettina Goislard was brutally murdered in Ghazni, southeastern Afghanistan. She was buried, at her request, in Kabul, following a small private funeral attended by family and friends. On 21 November, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs held a memorial service in Kabul, at which the Assistant High Commissioner condemned the murder, recalling that "twelve aid workers ... have been killed in Afghanistan in terrorist attacks" in 2003 alone, while thousands of civilians had been abused by commanders. He said he feared that this would continue, if concrete security measures were not put in place. UNHCR's Chief of Mission added that although the international community wants to stand by its promise to help the Afghan people, "if measures to improve the security of Afghans, of government officials, of aid workers, of the border areas, are not taken quickly, we will not be able to do so".

On 17 November, UNHCR closed its office in Ghazni and suspended operations in the area. The organisation temporarily withdrew all international staff from offices in Gardez, Jalalabad and Kandahar. Programmes continue to be implemented by national staff, with international staff supervising from Kabul.

The assisted repatriation operation from Pakistan is currently on hold, as are facilitated group returnrelated missions. Encashment and distribution centres in Gardez, Jalalabad, Kandahar, Khost, and Pul-i- Khumri have been closed. UNHCR representatives will discuss the suspension - which will actually have little impact on the operation given that returns at this time of year are traditionally low - when they meet with Government counterparts from Pakistan and Afghanistan at a meeting of the Tripartite Commission on Repatriation from Pakistan in Dubai this week.

Meanwhile, repatriation from Iran continues, although returnees are all crossing into Afghanistan via the Dogharoun/Islam Qala border point rather than through Milak/Zaranj, which was closed on 20 November in the southwest are not currently operational. Instead, all returnees from Iran proceed to the encashment and distribution facilities in Herat where they receive transport grants, non-food and food packages (including portions of the assistance that would normally be received at the second encashment centre nearer to their place of origin).

By 24 November, 470,000 Afghans had returned under the facilitated voluntary repatriation programme in 2003. Of these, 340,000 individuals had repatriated from Pakistan and 130,000 from Iran. Since the operation began in March 2002, UNHCR and its partners have helped 2,272,000 Afghans repatriate. Although the number of assisted returns from Iran has declined through the autumn, the rate of spontaneous return has increased. A total of 228,000 Afghans have returned from Iran spontaneously since April 2002. Together with IDP returns, the total number of Afghans who have returned to their places of origin since March 2002 now stands at three million.

Following a detailed review of the programme and the impact of the temporary suspension on the operation, UNHCR has concluded that almost all reintegration and IDP assistance projects will be finalised, with the exception of some water and sanitation and winterisation projects in the south and east. Registration and profiling of IDPs in the Zahre Dasht settlements will also be affected. The total value of projects that cannot be implemented as a result of recent events will not, however, be more than US$600,000. Should the current conditions lead to a delay in implementation, necessary programme extensions will be sought to ensure the continuation and completion of activities through to March 2004.

UNHCR aims to gradually re-establish presence and access in the south and east. As a first step, the organisation undertook a security mission to Jalalabad on 28 November, meeting with colleagues from UNAMA as well as the Governor of Nangarhar and core national staff. The Office is now establishing mechanisms which would allow operations to continue. Staffing levels will be cut to the minimum and a range of security measures relating to missions, curfews, etc. introduced.

Protection Issues

Governments asked not to deport Afghans

The current suspension of missions to most parts of Afghanistan has drastically reduced UNHCR's protection monitoring capacity outside the capital. UNHCR has therefore reiterated its request to governments to refrain from deporting Afghans to places of origin other than Kabul.

Constitutional Loya Jirga

Nationwide elections for the Constitutional Loya Jirga are expected to be completed by 8 December. So far, 98 delegates for the 106 seats for five Special Categories (refugees, Internally Displaced Persons, women, Kuchis and religious minorities) have been elected. Refugee elections in Iran and Pakistan have also been held. In Iran, 11 delegates were elected, of whom four were women. In Pakistan, 13 delegates were elected, of whom one was a woman. Elections for the nine Kuchi seats and six IDP seats have also been completed. The six IDP delegates were elected on the basis of the IDP population in the three main "IDP provinces": one delegate from the camps in Herat, one from the camps in Helmand, and four from the camps in Kandahar.

UNHCR's 2005 initiative

UNHCR has now established an Afghanistan Comprehensive Solutions Unit in the CASWANAME Bureau at Headquarters, charged with leading efforts to seek alternative solutions for Afghans who cannot or do not wish to return to Afghanistan following the expiry of the current Tripartite Agreements on Voluntary Repatriation in 2005. As well as holding discussions with governments in the region, UNHCR has met with key partners ILO, IOM, and UNDP on the issue, and with representatives of other governments that have expressed interest in the initiative.

Screening of deportees from Iran

Since April, when UNHCR and Iran's Bureau for Alien and Foreign Immigration Affairs (BAFIA) began to jointly screen Afghans deported through Dogharoun, some 500 individuals have come forward to ask to remain in Iran. Of these, 140 were registered as refugees in the 2001 BAFIA database. BAFIA agreed to release these people once a thorough verification process had been undertaken, providing the Bureau could be certain that they had not at any stage been back to Afghanistan. A total of 28 Afghans presented an asylum claim but were not found eligible for refugee status by UNHCR.

Some 300 separated children (aged 15-17) and unaccompanied women have been deported this year. UNHCR intervened on behalf of those who did not have family or friends to receive them in Afghanistan and accommodated them in the Torbat-e-Jam camp near Herat. The organisation has been working to trace family members in order to reunite deportees with their relatives.

Re-registration of Afghan refugees in Iran

In April 2003 the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran introduced an initiative under which all Afghans registered in 2001 were required to re-register by 18 October. All those registering were provided with temporary residence permits - valid for three to six months depending on whether the person registered is single or part of a family. The authorities have announced that those re-registering will have to pay to have residence permits extended. UNHCR has not yet seen the statistical data resulting from this process, and so does not know how many Afghans have actually registered.

Deportation of minors from Saudi Arabia

UNHCR offices in Kabul, Riyadh and Geneva have discussed the issue of the deportation of a number of Afghan minors from Saudi Arabia. Consultations have also been held with UNICEF and the two organsiations are working to devise and implement ways to return the Afghan minors (who are not refugees) in an orderly and dignified manner.

Land rights in Afghanistan

UNHCR has produced a paper (in English and Dari) on land-related issues, which has been shared with embassies, UN organisations, and NGOs. The paper, which is based on reports from returnee monitoring and protection missions, highlights the fact that many Afghans neither own or have access to land; that many refugees' homes have been taken over by others, and that there is widespread extortion and illegal levying of taxes (usually by commanders). In addition, many returnees find it difficult to recover property; access to grazing land is limited, and there has been widespread occupation of government land.

Aware that it will take many years to address the problem, UNHCR recommends devising short-term, interim, ad hoc solutions to these intricate and delicate problems as suggested by the Ministry for Refugees and Repatriation. In particular, UNHCR and the Ministry for Refugees and Repatriation would like to propose to the Central Government the establishment of pilot Provincial Land Fora (PLF) in areas of high refugee return or hosting many IDPs. The fora could be led by the provincial governor, with the participation of all land related provincial departments. Looking further ahead, additional research into the issue will need to be carried out, alongside support to the development of the judiciary and effective customary resolution mechanisms.

Funding

As of end November 2003, UNHCR had received USD 158.1 million in contributions for the Afghan Operation, leaving USD 25.6 million of the overall budget yet to be funded.