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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Pakistan
Index
The presence of large numbers Afghan refugees has had a
weighty impact on the demographics of Pakistan. After the
Soviet
Union invaded Afghanistan in December 1979, refugees began
streaming over the borders into Pakistan. By 1990
approximately
3.2 million refugees had settled there, a decrease of
about
90,000 from 1989. Previously uninhabited areas of the
North-West
Frontier Province and Balochistan had been settled by
refugees
during the 1980s. The United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR) estimated that in 1990 there were 345
Afghan
refugee villages. Of these, 68.5 percent were in the
North-West
Frontier Province, 26.0 percent in Balochistan, and 5.5
percent
in Punjab. Each village housed an average of 10,000
people, and
women and children accounted for 75 percent of the refugee
population.
The influx of refugees has had profound social
consequences,
and the population of desert areas has also had an effect
on the
environment. Initially, Pakistanis wanted to help their
neighbors
in a time of need, but difficulties slowly led many to
think that
their friendship had gone far enough. Among the problems
were
inflation, a dearth of low-paying jobs because these were
taken
by refugees, and a proliferation of weapons, especially in
urban
areas. The escalation of animosity between refugees and
Pakistanis, particularly in Punjab, caused the government
to
restrict the refugees' free movement in the country in the
mid1980s .
To assist Pakistan in preventing conflict by keeping
the
refugees separate from the local population, the UNHCR
placed
restrictions on disbursements of food and other goods in
its
refugee camps in the North-West Frontier Province and in
Balochistan. Since the 1989 end of the Soviet occupation
in
Afghanistan, the UNHCR, the Pakistan government, and an
array of
NGOs have encouraged the refugees to return home, but
until
internecine fighting in Afghanistan stops, many will elect
to
remain in Pakistan. In early 1994, the number of Afghan
refugees
still residing in Pakistan was estimated at 1.4 million,
according to Amnesty International. More than 2 million
Afghan
refugees also remained in Iran.
Data as of April 1994
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