Dangerous dilemma for Jakarta's Afghans

An Afghan refugee shaves at a backpacker hostel in Jakarta while deciding whether to go home

JAKARTA, Indonesia (CNN) -- After a visit by the Afghan refugee minister, the International Office of Migration has announced that the first batch of Afghan migrants in Indonesia will be returning to Afghanistan in early May.

For many Afghan migrants in Jakarta it is a stark choice: To risk a dangerous journey to Australia, only to be faced with detention camps on arrival or return home to a war-torn, impoverished Afghanistan.

Recenty Enayatullah Nazari, Afghanistan's Minister of Refugees, has visited Indonesia to convince his countrymen to come home to help rebuild their country.

"We have a lot of effort to do after 23 years of war. We have to rebuild our country, provide housing to them and open up our country so that the situation becomes conducive for them to return," Nazari told CNN.

"And I'm quite confident they will be returning," he reiterated through a translator.

Hundreds of Afghans are stranded in Indonesia after numerous failed attempts to reach Australia.

As Australia's no-tolerance policy towards illegal migrants intensifies, would-be asylum seekers are losing hope of ever landing on its shores.

Only option to return

Crowded into Jakarta's cheap hotels, Afghan migrants, like Sayed Mustafa, are starting to believe the only option left is to return home.

"Most people will go back because if they have some chances they will not go. But unfortunately, they do not have any chance. And (because of that) they are going," says Mustafa.

Next door to Mustafa sits Safura and her six children, who all share one room in Indonesia's capital.

Her husband lives in Sydney, but after spending one week adrift at sea trying to reach him, she is resigned to returning to Afghanistan -- even as she doubts Minister Nazali's promises of peace.

"We know the habit of our people and what they will do. I'm sure the fighting will start again. The peace will not stay for a long time," Safura tells CNN.

"Twenty years of fighting cannot be finished in four months like that. Until now we don't believe," she reiterates.

Promises of peace are not completely believed in the Jakarta neighborhood overwhelmed with stranded Afghan migrants.

But given the choice between Australia's detention camps, Indonesia's crowded hostels and Afghanistan, many say they will take their chances back home.