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Afghans Facing New Pressure to Go Home
Wednesday, July 17, 2002
By Kirsten Lawson
The Canberra Times

"It's fine now to return in [a] safe way," Canberra program officer Henk Vandamme said yesterday. The IOM was checking whether the routes to people's planned destinations in Afghanistan were safe before sending people back, but most were gong to Kabul or nearby.

Nearly 1000 Afghan asylum-seekers in detention on Nauru and in Australia will face renewed pressure to go home after the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees declared their country safe for return yesterday.

The International Organisation for Migration has already organised three planeloads of Afghans to return, with the first expected this month.

But the Government is reluctant to say how many have accepted its repatriation offer of $2000 a head, and will not announce any returns until they are complete in case protest groups try to disrupt the plans.

A spokesman for Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock said the Government would try to give the asylum-seekers "a day or two" of notice before their flight, but that may not be possible.

To date, the UNHCR has urged governments to be cautious about sending people back, with Afghanistan still unstable and dangerous in parts.
(More: The Canberra Times News Source)
2002 © Rural Press, Ltd.

Dan