Together with a colleague from UNICEF Jalabad I went by road (as usually two armored cars required) to Laghman province, which is about one hour South from Jalalabad city. Aim was to visit a site where 800 Afghan families have settled down in 2007 – after 20 years as refugees in Peshawar/Pakistan.
With more than five million refugees repatriated since 2002, Afghanistan is the leading country in the world in terms of returns. Over three million Afghan refugees have voluntarily returned home from Pakistan, about 856,000 were repatriated from Iran and over 14,700 have returned from other countries (Figures UN High Commissioner for Refugees).
While the return of so many refugees is a spectacular achievement for the post-Taliban government – it has exacerbated access to scare resources in a country where over 27 million people, more than half of the population, live on less than US$1 per day.
In many places the returnees lack everything – from drinking water over health care to education. They share this situation with millions of their co-citizens, but in addition they have no land or home.
The settlement in Laghman Province is a positive illustration of what can be achieved with joint efforts of various partners. The local authorities have allocated lands to the families to build their houses on, UNICEF is providing schools and water, World Food Programme (WFP) is delivering monthly food rations to cover the daily calorie intake. A mobile clinic comes three times a week ensuring basic health care. Thanks to World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF all children under five years old are vaccinated against polio and other preventable childhood diseases.
The people with whom I discussed are happy to be back. They lost their homes twice – when the Russian occupation forced them to flee Afghanistan and when the Pakistan Government made them leave Pakistan (by destroying their accommodation with bulldozers and cutting water-supply in the refugee camp) – but they had the energy to start again from the scratch.
A significant detail I observed is the eagerness of parents to send their children – boys and girls – to school. Many people in rural Afghan areas remain reluctant towards girls’ education, but the returnees are more than happy that community-based school tents have been set-up in their site and contribute to their management. In a couple of weeks the construction of a concrete school building will be completed and the currently 13 tent-classrooms, scattered across the settlement area, will be unified in one single primary school, accommodating 490 students including 280 girls.
Key problems remaining are water – since the groundwater-level is 80 meters deep – and secondary education. Many youngsters went to school in Pakistan, being back in their country they have no place to continue their education. The school on site covers primary education and sending the youngsters to the next city would involve expenses that the families can not cover. To foster their families’ budget many of them are now working on the school construction site or surrounding villages.
The ad hoc status of returnees in Laghman is positive – the future of the next generation remains a question-mark.
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