UNHCR: Afghan Refugees Need to Wait Before Returning Home

WASHINGTON, January 24, 2002 -- Afghanistan's four million refugees in Pakistan and Iran will not be able to return home for months, if not years, an official of the United Nations refugees agency told Pew Fellows today.

"At the moment, we are not encouraging any people to start going back in large numbers before the spring," said Panos Moumtzis, senior public information officer for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

With the defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan, many Afghans who have lived outside the country - some for as long as 20 years - are anxious to return. But Moumtzis said the country's "harsh winter" and "total devastation" from the American-led war against the Taliban makes an early return ill-advised and dangerous.

"There are millions of landmines" in the Afghan countryside, Moumtzis said. He added it would take at least "four months, at least," to begin the process of demarcation of landmines. With continuing political stability, the return of the four million Afghan refugees could be completed "within a year or two." Afghan refugees now settled in neighboring Pakistan will be given the opportunity to visit their homeland before making a final decision to return, he said.

Moumtzis said the UNHCR is launching a campaign to attract private donors to aid the resettlement of Afghan refugees, the largest single group of the world's 22 million refugees. He said CEOs of private foundations and corporations are being asked to provide funds to help rebuild or build new facilities such as hospitals and schools in partnerships with relief groups and humanitarian organizations.