Saturday, December 8, 2012

Over 1m un-registered Afghan refugees living in Pakistan

Federal Minister for States and Frontier Regions (SAFRON) Engineer Shaukat Ullah said that over one million un-registered Afghan refugees are living in Pakistan. The minister said that presently some 1.66 million registered Afghans residing in Pakistan, 37% of the population lives in refugee villages in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 69, Balochistan 10, and Punjab 1, while 63% live in urban and rural areas. The majority of the Afghan refugees come from five provinces in Afghanistan- Nangarhar, Kabul, Kunduz, logar and Paktya. 37% of registered Afghans refugees in Pakistan live in 80 refugee villages of which 79 are located along the borders with Afghanistan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces, he added. Shaukat said that 63% live in rural and urban areas. The Representative of UNHCR Neill Wright, informed that total of 3.80 million individuals have repatriated to Afghanistan between 2002 and 2012. PPVR is a comprehensive household survey that was carried out to assess the needs of the Afghan refugees in Pakistan. The survey commenced in September 2010 and by the end of December 2011, over 130,000 household had been interviewed by PPVR teams. The findings of the survey were made by public on November 28, 2012. The Government of Pakistan and UNHCR have a compilation of comprehensive household information on a significant number of Afghan households living in camps, urban and rural areas in Pakistan. The data contains information on demographic and social characteristics that include sex, age, marital status, religion, language, ethnic group, disability, population information such fertility and mortality, housing types, household asset indicating the wealth index, basic health, education that includes disparities between sexes, enrollment, mobility capturing intention to return to Afghanistan, livelihood remittances, economic activities including labour force participation, protection and security needs and water and sanitation.

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