ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Feb. 12 (UPI) -- Pakistan says it will complete the registration of more than 2 million Afghan refugees this week in an effort to prevent terror.
Pakistani Minister of States and Frontier Regions Sardar Yar Muhammad Rind said at the weekend that the registration process would be completed by Thursday.
Any Afghan refugees in the country remaining unregistered after that date would have a "grace period" of six weeks before being "declared illegal immigrants and treated as per law," he said, according to a report by the semi-official Associated Press of Pakistan, or APP.
Around 2.1 million refugees have so far been registered, and been given a document called a Proof of Registration, the Pakistani agency said.
Holders of the document would be eligible for "an enhanced reintegration package" if they repatriate to Afghanistan. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees will give $60 to each returnee, said the agency, and the Afghan and Pakistani governments both pledged to chip in to raise the amount to $100 for holders of the registration document who turn them in and go home.
Pakistani officials have previously pledged to close refugee camps in the lawless regions on the Afghan frontier, which they say make it impossible for them to effectively control the border.
Rind, the agency reported, said four of the camps, two each in Baluchistan and the North West Frontier Province, with a combined population of 240,000, would be closed "with the consent of Afghan authorities in near future,"
