Stateless for Life

In 1979, as Soviet forces invaded Afghanistan, millions of Afghans crossed the border into Pakistan. Many civilians also fled the Taliban’s strict regime in the mid ‘90s  and nearly 300,000 sought refuge following the bombings during the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.

The UNHCR helped more than 2.7 million refugees return between 2002 and 2005, but more than 2.5 million Afghans have remained in Pakistan, which has now been home to the world’s largest refugee population for more than two decades.

Hosting this large number of refugees for such a long period of time has been a considerable burden on Pakistan. Despite continuing pressure from the central government to repatriate them, Afghanistan isn’t ready to receive them; the country is unable to provide them with security, shelter and livelihood.

Poorly constructed refugee camps where hundreds of thousands of Afghan families live in primitively built mud huts are scattered throughout Northwest Frontier Province, situated not far from the Afghan border.

For safety reasons, our party was only allowed to stop briefly at Katchi Garhi in Peshawar, a camp home to approximately 100,000 refugees living in 13,000 structures. A crowd forms as our car approaches and we get out; they are not used to seeing foreigners.

Children giggle nervously and run back to their houses as I start taking photographs.

A sweet girl with dark expressive eyes breaks into tears as I take a moment to capture a photograph of her. An older boy grabs her arm, pinches her, orders her to be brave and she quickly wipes her tears away, stands firmly and smiles shyly as my camera draws nearer. Boys of different ages pose proudly in front of the lens and for the short span of time they are overjoyed by attention they aren’t used to.

I ask Nasrullah Kotwal, a student of Peshawar University, whether he intends to go back to Afghanistan again.

“It’s really tough in Afghanistan. I went to Kabul to enroll at university some months ago, but I felt unsafe,” he said. “I came back to Peshawar where I feel secure, at home and where I’m close to family and friends.”

After all, life in Peshawar isn’t very different from Afghanistan as most refugees have the same ethnic background; they’re Pathans and speak the same Pashtu language. In rural areas in Afghanistan, people often live in mud houses, and they have built the same in Pakistan.

More than 70 percent of the population in Afghanistan is chronically malnourished and there is no employment in their war-torn country. In Pakistan they can work; one of the men I met, Zahid Ullah, owns a small electronic shop at the entrance of the camp, while others work in markets selling merchandise.

The Pakistani government has provided all registered refugees with a biometric identity card which permits them to travel between the two countries. Each day, around 38,000 people pass back and forth through the 960 border posts along the 2,560 km long border with Afghanistan. This way the Pakistani government also manages to controls its border traffic to combat terrorism.

Both Zahid and Nasrullah break into smiles as I take some pictures of them. “When will you come back again?” they ask.” I hope soon, I tell them. They quickly note down their email addresses on a small piece of paper. I get back into the car and remain silent for a brief while as we continue our journey. I wish I had been given more time to chat.

+ Laura Schuurmans

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