Afghan carpet factories in Pakistan are falling silent as exiles return home, Catherine Redden reports .
'As the looms fall silent around Peshawar, Nasib's family and thousands of others will be hoping for stability, and that the outside world will not forget them again. The journey home is a gamble. 'A high-walled compound set in a warren of dusty lanes outside Peshawar, the provincial capital of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, conceals a vibrant world of colourfully dyed wool drying in the sun, figures briskly scrubbing carpets in time to lilting music, and boys working rows of looms. The carpet factory belongs to Abdul Ghafoor Khudaybirdi, an Afghan of Turkoman origin, and is part of the thriving carpet industry spawned over the 22 years of turmoil in Afghanistan that sent generations of refugees into Pakistan seeking work.
Now an exodus is under way as large numbers are packing up and returning to their war-ravaged country, hoping for peace and a new beginning.
This week the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees announced the half million mark had already been reached for Afghan refugees returning from Pakistan. A repatriation programme launched on March 1st had anticipated a figure of 400,000 for the whole of 2002.
Peshawar's carpet industry is rapidly disappearing. UN officials have seen looms on the trucks loaded with Afghans and their possessions trundling back over the Khyber Pass.
Among those preparing to leave is a sizeable chunk of Abdul Ghafoor's workforce. Over the past four months the number of employees who work at any of his four factories or in their homes, has shrunk from 3,500 to about 1,500.
His brother, Shakur, has just opened a new factory in Kabul.
"If peace comes to Afghanistan, I think most people will go back," said Abdul Ghafoor. "Afghans living here have a very difficult time. They don't want to stay here, they want to go back to Afghanistan."
Afghans have often faced squalid living conditions, especially in the refugee camps around Peshawar.
Their reception in Pakistan became increasingly hostile as foreign aid dwindled in a response to Pakistani support for the Taliban, and the impoverished country felt unable to cope with the refugee burden.
The situation was exacerbated by a large new influx of refugees fleeing the Taliban regime and severe drought.
"When I was in Afghanistan I went to school," said 12-year-old Nasib Muhammed Inam who has been working at the factory since his family left Afghanistan 1½ years ago. "After school I played with my friends. Now I have to work to help pay the rent and all the bills. There is no time to play or to enjoy myself."
Nasib's father has gone to Kabul to try to arrange work and see how safe it is before coming back for his wife and their nine children.
In the meantime, they have set up a loom for what is likely to be the last carpet they will weave in Pakistan.
Abdul Ghafoor himself became a refugee from his home in northern Afghanistan when he was 17 and was unable to complete his studies. He says he tried to help new influxes of refugees by offering them work and training.
For his family, carpets are a way of life, and they successfully rebuilt their business from scratch in 1982, three years after they began life as refugees in Pakistan.
Subsequently, they adapted production to fit the waves of migration over two decades. Now Abdul Ghafoor intends to move his carpet production back to Afghanistan, but he will do so with reservations.
He has no immediate plans to move back himself as he has insufficient confidence in security.
To conduct his carpet business would require him to travel the country and he does not believe it is safe enough yet. Another problem is the lack of banking and export systems.
As the looms fall silent around Peshawar, Nasib's family and thousands of others will be hoping for stability, and that the outside world will not forget them again. The journey home is a gamble.
"Afghanistan needs 20 years more, if it is a very good government - and maybe 50 years to restore it to what it was," said Abdul Ghafoor. "Everything is broken down. They are starting from zero."