USCR visited Pakistan in November to assess conditions for Afghan refugees. Approximately 2 million Afghan refugees repatriated from Pakistan between 1989, when Soviet troops withdrew, and 1995. It determined that some 1.2 million refugees, including previously unregistered refugees, were living in the Afghan refugee villages in Pakistan. Approximately two-thirds of them had been living in the refugee villages for at least a decade. The refugee villages appear much like other rural villages in Pakistan.
Refugees mostly live in self-constructed mud houses.
They are able to move freely in Pakistan and work wherever they can find jobs. Most find at least subsistence work in the local economy. Perhaps as many as 10 percent of the refugees remain vulnerable, however, including those handicapped, sick, or widowed. Food assistance to the general refugee population ended in 1995. Refugees stay in Pakistan because they have carved out reasonable and predictable lives, at least compared to what they could expect in Afghanistan, humanitarian workers in say.