June the 20th marks the World Refugee Day. Afghanistan is a country with millions of its population scattered as refugees around the world that is why our government and people attach high importance to this day.
Despite the fact that over the past fifteen years, more than six million refugees have returned home and resumed a peaceful life, millions other Afghans still reside out of their country.
It is an imperative we make sure that no other Afghan is forced to leave his or her home and village. Not only a refugee issue abroad, Afghanistan is also dealing with hundreds of thousands of internally displaced population (IDP).
While local and international organizations have reached out to the IDPs with emergency relief assistance, the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation has also included the issue in its first 100-day Action Plan. The Ministry aims to conduct a comprehensive study and survey to seek durable solutions to the problems and find ways so the IDPs can return to their original places of living and villages. Delivering assistance to IDPs and addressing the main drivers of the problem constitute one of the main goals of the Afghan government.
Afghan refugees in Iran and Pakistan alone make up about 95% of the total refugees we have in the world. I would like to express my gratitude to the peoples and governments of the two neighboring countries for hosting millions of our people. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and other humanitarian organizations for assisting and standing by our refugees in difficult times. In my recent visit to the Islamic Republic of Iran, both sides agreed to assign a joint commission to assess and review the Afghan refugees’ conditions in Iran. Let me thank the Leader of the Islamic Republic for issuing an order that gives the children of Afghan refugees the right to study in Iranian schools and madrassas.
We are in discussions with our Iranian counterparts to reach an agreement for a voluntary repatriation, extension to residence and work permit for the Afghan refugees.
I would also like to thank the Pakistani authorities for agreeing to register those of our refugees who have not yet been registered or lack proper documentations. This process will begin this summer in Pakistan. Let’s be reminded that the period afghan refugees are allowed to stay in Pakistan ends by the end of 2015. I hope that the Pakistani government, taking the critical situation of Afghanistan into account, extends residing period of these refugees.
Although most of the Afghans who have recently returned home have regained a peaceful and a happy life, and some of whom have begun as politicians, professionals and businessmen, a remarkable number still live in difficult conditions with their homes and properties illegally seized and their rights breached.
Furthermore, the townships where the returnees were supposed to reside either lack basic amenities or were forcefully taken by powerful individuals; we should put an end to such a predicament.
The Government of Afghanistan attaches high importance to the issue of refugees and to that end Afghan cabinet established a National Refugees Commission and I personally chair it. This commission in partnership with all relevant stakeholders will address and the problems of the refugees and IDPs.
There are more than half a million Afghans living in the Gulf and Arab states. About three hundred thousand Afghans have problems with their documents in Saud Arabia alone. The Saudi government has agreed that we issue Afghan passports to those of our countrymen who have problems with their documents. Likewise, we are also trying to improve the working conditions for our countrymen who reside in the Gulf States.
We intend to increase the authority and capacity of our consulate offices in those countries in order to address the problems that Afghans face. It is a fundamental obligation of the government to defend the rights of the Afghan citizens who live abroad. The refugees have certain rights that the world has recognized. All our efforts will be focused toward ensuring that our refugees enjoy their rights and that their children have the opportunity to get educated and learn new skills.
It is also worth mentioning that thousands of Afghans live as refugees in Europe, Australia, Canada, United States and other countries and have benefited from their hospitality and services. But recently an increasing number of Afghan refugees have faced the risk of getting expelled because of lack of documentation.
My request to those countries is to take into account our problems this year and stop expelling Afghan asylum seekers. The story of our refugees is a sad part of our modern history.
Millions of Afghans have had to live away from their homes; they have had to suffer the hardships concomitant with being refugees. Unfortunately, this dire situation has not come to an end.
But our vision and resolve is to once again make Afghanistan the common home of all Afghans and to shape the future as such so that no Afghan is forced to live away from his home and, with the help of the Almighty, this future is not too far from the reach.
Over the entire course of past Gregorian year, seventeen thousand Afghan refugees returned home. However, only in the past six months of the current year, forty two thousand Afghans have returned home. These figures show that the repatriation rate has gone up manifold.
Afghans, regardless of where they have to live, do not forget their motherland. Our literature is replete with feelings of love for the homeland and bitter experience of having to live abroad. Our people know it better than anyone else how one’s dignity falls in the stranger’s land. (A verse of a Pashto poem translated)
In the hope of a future, no one is forced to leave his or her native country – neither Afghanistan nor anywhere else in the world.
Long Live Afghanistan!