3.04million Afghans currently residing in country, says report

ISLAMABAD—About 3.04 million Afghans are living in Pakistan including 1.29 million Afghans living in refugee camps and 1.75 million Afghans are living outside of refugees camps.
According to the figures released by the Statistics Division, a census of Afghan living in Pakistan was carried out by Population Census organization, an attached department of statistics division in collaboration with UNHCR and SAFRON from February 23 to March 11, 2005, all over the country.
The census covered all Afghans who arrived in Pakistan after December 1, 1979 and are living in Pakistan at the time of the census.
Census operation was monitored by national and international agencies and all of them have acknowledged credibility of the exercise. The bench mark data obtained through the census provides a base line for comprehensive durable solution of Afghan problem to government of Pakistan, government of Afghanistan and UNHCR.
According to the census, Afghans in Pakistan are concentrated near their country of origin, with nearly 87 percent residing in the two Pakistani provinces bordering Afghanistan; NWFP and Balochistan. It shows that about 1.87 million Afghans are residing in NWFP, 0.769 million in Balochistan, 0.2 million in Punjab, 0.135 million in Sindh, 45,259 in Islamabad and 13,079 are living in Azad Jammu and Kashmir.
The census shows that Pashtuns from the overwhelming majority of Afghans in all areas with 81.5 percent of the total. After that come Tajiks at seven percent, Uzbek two percent, Hazaras one percent, Turks two percent, Balochs two percent and others ethnicities are four percent.
The census shows that young character of population, as over 19 percent of Afghans in Pakistan are under the age of five, compared to about 15 percent of Pakistan's population in this age group. This demographic profile underlines the fact that much of the Afghan population was born in exile.—Online