Legitimate Afghan Refugees Remain In Pakistan Until 2017
MEP: According to a trilateral agreement of Afghanistan, Commissioner for the United Nations and Pakistan, the legally registered Afghan refugees’ documents in Pakistan, extended until the end of 2017.
The agreement was obtained at a meeting last night between Sayyed Hussain Alemi Balkhi, Afghanistan’s minister of refugees, Abdul Qadir Baloch, Secretary of border areas and refugees in Pakistan and Aynderyka Ratvata, representative of the UN High Commissioner in Islamabad.
According to the agreement, the refugees who have been legally registered as refugees in the list of UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) can stay in Pakistan until the end of 2017.
At the same time, the United Nations Commissioner has no obligation for Afghan citizens living in Pakistan who are not registered in the list.
The development comes as Islamabad has recently decided to ban Afghans entering the country without a visa.
According to Afghanistan’s Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation, around 700 thousand of Afghan refugees during the last year have left Pakistan and based on the United Nations official statistics, currently about one million and 300 thousand as legally registered Afghans and 600 thousand people as illegally are living in Pakistan.
