NEW DELHI (PTI): Nearly 17,000 Afghans of Indian origin that have fled their homes to escape civil strife in Afghanistan face an uncertain future with the United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees (UNHCR) not being very keen to continue their role and the Indian government yet to grant them refugee status.

The UNHCR is pressing the Indian government to give these people a refugee status and open up prospects of a livelihood for them or agree to formulate some proposals to involve them in productive activity. The UNHCR, which is spending nearly Rs 80 thousand a day on these refugees, is not very keen to continue with the dole, a senior UN official said.

In all there are 24,000 refugees, 17,000 of Indian origin and around 7,000 of Afghan origin who were former civil servants during Najibullah’s regime, he said.

In the present scenario, with increasing strife in the landlocked Asian state, and the rise of fundamentalism, these Sikhs and Hindus cannot really go back and as they do not have links elsewhere, the UNHCR cannot send them elsewhere, the official said.

The UNHCR cannot endlessly go on with the dole and these people may not be able to go back for a long time, the official said.

India does not have any dealings with the UNHCR and is yet to accord any status to this body, Indian official sources said.

As far as Afghans of Indian origin are concerned, these people who have come in the wake of the civil strife conditions in Afghanistan have been allowed to take refuge in this country, the Indian official sources said. The UNHCR says it does not want to continue with the dole for two reasons. One, it encourages a sense of dependence, and second many of the refugees want to be productive and cam a livelihood and not be “parasites,” the UN official said.

A good many of the refugees complained the dole was too little to even subsist. Each family gets an average of around Rs 2,500 a month. The head of the family gets Rs 850/, Rs 415 each is given for the next three dependents, another Rs 210 to the next three dependents, the UNHCR said. The UNHCR also reimburses some portion of the medical bills, but after a tedious procedure of verification.

It also partially supports primary education of these refugees paying up to Rs 150 for each child.

The UNHCR is currently running three centers in the capital two in south Delhi and one in west Delhi, where the refugees gather for primary health care and vocational training like motor or air conditioner repairing, sewing and beauty care. The refugees are mainly middle class and gravitate to middleclass areas where the rents even for a small, single room is nothing less than Rs $00 or Rs 1000.

It is tragic that many of these people have become refugees for the second time, he says. The first time was in 1947 when after partition those living in the northwest frontier province of Pakistan fled to Afghanistan and now have had to file their homes again, he added.

Since conditions deteriorated in Afghanistan there has been a spurt in the influx of refugees, especially from October last, the UNHCR said. Their numbers had dwindled to a trickle of 7,000 last July. Then they began coming in large numbers over land through Pakistan and by air from October.

From January this year till May 31, the UNHCR had registered 13,000 refugees of Indian origin, he’ said.

The refugees coming here look no different from their Indian cousins, the UNHCR official said, Bur Most of them do not speak any Hindu or eyen Punjabi, some of the older generation do. The younger among them Speak only Pushtu of Dari.

Article extracted from this publication >>  June 25, 1993