ABSTRACT
In the autumn of 1981 an officer of the Pakistan Commission for Afghan Refugees in Peshawar gave an unofficial estimate that 100,000 Afghan Powindahs were in Pakistan awaiting the end of the war. Pakistan does not consider them refugees unless they register themselves and stay in one of the officially established refugee camps. The great majority of Kuchis remained within Afghanistan migrating seasonally with their flocks of sheep and goats between the lowlands and the mountainous central or north-eastern Afghanistan. Elsewhere in Pakistan Afghan nomads have also found grazing and camping grounds, for instance in the desert east of Bahawalpur and in north-eastern Baluchistan. No doubt Pakistan offers opportunities to Afghan animal farmers; there is pasture land available and there is a high demand for the products they can offer, such as mutton, butter and wool.
