[Reader-list] Kashmiri Pandit migrants are internally displaced: UN

[Pawan Durani]

thank u roots in kashmir

On 11/3/08, Aditya Raj Kaul <kauladityaraj at gmail.com> wrote:
>  Kashmiri Pandit migrants are internally displaced: UN
> PTI
>
>    New Delhi, Nov 03: The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has said
> it treats Kashmiri Pandit migrants as 'Internally Displaced Persons', a
> status the community has been demanding for long, but made it clear that the
> world body has no role to play in their case.
>
> "The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) has no role with Internally Displaced Persons
> in India," the world body said in response to a memorandum submitted by a
> Kashmiri Pandit group 'Roots in Kashmir' (RIK).
>
> In the memorandum, submitted during the visit of UN Secretary General Ban Ki
> Moon last Friday, the Kashmiri group appealed that the world body take
> cognisance of the plight of Pandits who had to leave their homes in the
> valley.
>
> The RIK said that even 19 years after the mass exodus, over 50,000 of
> "Kashmiri Pandit refugees are living in pathetic conditions in uninhabitable
> refugee camps" and that the successive Central and state governments had
> failed in protecting their rights.
>
> In response, the UNHCR said its mandate is to work for refugees and "in some
> countries, on invitation by sovereign governments, with internally displaced
> populations".
>
> Making a distinction between internally displaced persons and refugees, it
> said it depends on whether the people have crossed an international border.
>
> "They (Kashmiri Pandits) may have left Kashmir for reasons very similar to
> those who become refugees, but since they have not crossed an international
> border, they continue to be protected by the same national government (in
> this case India) in a different part of the country (Jammu, Delhi, Mumbai,
> etc)," it said.
>
> "They have not lost the protection of the national government," the UNHCR
> said, adding the world body steps in when people lose the protection of
> their national governments, by crossing an international border.
>
> *'276,000 Afghan refugees returned this year'*
>
> More than 276,000 Afghan refugees have returned to their troubled homeland
> this year, most of them from Pakistan, under a voluntary repatriation
> programme, the UN refugee agency said today.
>
> The programme, which has wrapped up for the year ahead of winter, is the
> largest in the world with more then five million Afghans coming home since
> 2002 after the fall of the extremist Taliban regime.
>
> "The official figure for returnees to Afghanistan this year from Pakistan,
> Iran and what we call non-neighbouring countries is 276,700," UN High
> Commissioner for Refugees official Ewen McLeod told reporters.
>
> Bureau Report
>
> Link - http://www.zeenews.com/articles.asp?aid=480822&sid=NAT
>
>
> --
> Aditya Raj Kaul
>
> Freelance Correspondent, The Times of India
> Cell - +91-9873297834
>
> Campaign Blog: http://kashmiris-in-exile.blogspot.com/
> Personal Blog: http://activistsdiary.blogspot.com/
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