The Afghan government is failing refugees who want to return to the country from neighbouring Iran and Pakistan. It is not able to offer them security, jobs or basic services such as healthcare, says the International Crisis Group in a report published on Monday.
 

Repatriating refugees in Afghanistan is becoming increasingly difficult, as the security situation in the country deteriorates. Despite this, five million Afghans have returned home since the US-led invasion of 2002, with three million refugees still living in Iran and Pakistan.

Rural areas

The returnees face many problems, according to the ICG report "Afghanistan: What now for refugees?". The unstable situation in the rural areas, for instance, prevents many refugees from returning to their home towns in rural Afghanistan. Instead, they migrate to the cities, but that leads to friction, says ICG's Samina Ahmed.
 
"These cities already have strained services like water, power and proper housing", she says. "So refugees who move to these cities end up in squalor. There are no jobs, which only leads to poverty, unemployment and criminality. The government should have worked to improve rural development. That would have created livelihoods outside the cities".

Vulnerable
The ICG warns that the continuing insecure situation for returnees can be dangerous in the long run. The unemployed and the poor are vulnerable to recruitment by the insurgents. Also, refugees who return to claim their land may end up in land disputes with the associated dangers of tribal and ethnic violence, the ICG says.

Afghan government
The obvious question is what the Afghan government can do to improve the refugees' situation. "One of the things that we have to understand is that Afghanistan was completely destroyed in the civil war", Ms Ahmed admits. "Rebuilding it is a gigantic task. But yet, as long as there's still a corrupt police force and a dysfunctional government, it doesn't really lend to the legitimacy of the state and no true improvements can be expected".
 
"The Afghan government should concentrate on its main priority, which is good governance", Ms Ahmed adds. "The state will benefit, as will the people".

Loyalty
Another question is whether Afghan refugees in Iran and Pakistan would want to go back to their country if the circumstances there are so devastating. It's a question of loyalty, says Ms Ahmed: "Everybody wants to belong to their country of origin, if there is a choice". But the problem in Iran and Pakistan is, of course, that there is no choice. "It's also a case of coercion. Iran and Pakistan want the refugees to go home. This forces some people to go home as they think they would be better off".
 

Listen to a Newsline interview with Samina Ahmed: