July 29, 2002
Amnesty International has criticised the United Nations for encouraging Afghan refugees to return home, warning the current huge wave of repatriation could lead to new cycles of displacement due to ongoing insecurity in the war-torn land.
The London-based human rights watchdog said the time was not right for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to push the "voluntary repatriation" of Afghans.
"In light of the current high rate of refugee returns, lack of absorption capacity to handle those returns and continued insecurity in Afghanistan, now is not the time for the UNHCR and states to be encouraging and promoting the return of Afghan refugees," Amnesty said.
UNHCR has announced that since March, more than 1.25 million Afghan refugees have returned, mainly from neighbouring Pakistan. Some 100,000 have returned from Iran, Afghanistan's western neighbour.
An estimated 8,000 Afghans are returning home daily, according to UNHCR figures this month.
Amnesty stressed that "the maintenance of international standards is critical to ensuring protection and a safe and dignified return.
"Failure to respect international standards scrupulously may lead to renewed cycles of displacement," it warned.
A UNHCR spokesman in Pakistan said earlier in July that the agency was not actively encouraging the repatriation because of the "grim conditions" in Afghanistan.
"We are not encouraging the repatriation, because the situation as you know is pretty grim, but they have made a decision that they are better off there [in Afghanistan] than here," spokesman Jack Redden said.
Amnesty has asked the UNHCR to clarify its position on the return of Afghan refugees and asylum seekers, saying the agency had been "ambiguous."
"The UNHCR appears to be both encouraging states to work towards returns, while itself claiming not to be promoting such returns." Amnesty charged.
It said the UNHCR had suspended the return of internally displaced persons to some parts of the country's volatile north, where clashes between rival warlords have been frequent.
"This followed reported escalating violence and a deterioration of the human rights situation in parts of northern and central Afghanistan. Only two weeks later, the UNHCR is now claiming conditions are 'ripe' for return," Amnesty said.
The UNHCR said last week that it had changed its position from February when it called on governments to be wary of voluntary repatriation programmes and to refrain from final decisions on asylum claims by Afghans.
"Many of the reasons which prompted people to flee only a year ago, under the previous Taliban regime, no longer exist," the agency said in a press statement from its Geneva headquarters.
"UNHCR is therefore recommending to governments that the time is now ripe for Afghans – wherever they are and at whatever stage they may be in the asylum process – to be offered the option of voluntary repatriation," the July 16 statement said.
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