ISLAMABAD, Dec 11 (APP):Minister for States and Frontier Regions (SAFRN) (Lt. General (R) Abdul Qadir Baloch on Monday informed the National Assembly that about 1.38 million registered Afghans Refugees holding Proof of Registration (PoR) cards were living in Pakistan.
Answering the questions in National Assembly during question hour, he said that the major districts of Afghan refugees residing areas are Peshawar, Nowshera, Kohat, Haripur, Swabi, Quetta, Pishin, Chaghai, Loralai, Rawalpindi, Chakwal, Attock, Mianwali, Malir and Karachi (East and West).
The minister said that in addition there are approximately 700,000 undocumented Afghan’s in Pakistan.
Qadir Baloch said that the repatriation of registered Afghan Refugees is guided by the principle of voluntarism and
gradualism as embedded in the Tripartite Agreement signed between Governments of Pakistan, Afghanistan and UNHCR that is valid till December 31, 2017.
Under this program more than 4.3 million refugees have returned to Afghanistan since 2002 which is marked as the largest voluntary repatriation program in UNHCR’s history, he added.
He said that the government encouraged repatriation of Afghan Nationals to their country of origin in whatever manner that it can.
Speaker National Assembly Sardar Ayaz Sadiq said that he would write to the Prime Minister to suspend SAFRON secretary for three days for not replying the questions and wrongly addressing the National Assembly.
