Pakistan allows Afghan refugees to open bank accounts

By Aamir Latif

KARACHI, Pakistan (AA) - Lifting a longstanding ban, Pakistan allowed some 1.5 million registered Afghan refugees to open accounts with the local banks, Prime Minister Imran Khan said on Monday.

“I have issued instructions today that Afghan refugees who are registered can open bank accounts and from now onwards they participate in the formal economy of the country.

“This should have been done a long time ago," Khan said on his Twitter account.

The facility will not be available to unregistered refugees.

There are over 2.5 million Afghan refugees living in Pakistan, making it the largest refugee population after the Syrians in Turkey.

Out of 2.5 million, around 1.5 million are registered, whereas over a million live without documents, mostly in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and southwestern Balochistan provinces that border Afghanistan.

The move coincides with the fresh round of Islamabad-sponsored direct talks between the U.S., and the Afghan Taliban held in Doha, Qatar in an attempt to find a negotiated settlement of a bloody conflict in neighboring Afghanistan, which has entered its 18th year.

According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), more than 3.8 million refugees have been repatriated to Afghanistan since 2002 but many returned to Pakistan due to ongoing violence, unemployment and a lack of education and medical facilities.