Afghan repatriation nears 300,000

The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) announced on Thursday that the total number of Afghans returning to Afghanistan from Iran since the start of the joint voluntary repatriation effort this year has now neared the 300,000 mark. "The total number is 295,531," a UNHCR spokesman, Mohammad Nouri, told IRIN from the Iranian capital, Tehran. Since the start of the voluntary repatriation effort on 9 April, 224,432 Afghans had been helped to go home, while another 71,099 had returned spontaneously, or unassisted, he said. Asked whether Iran was experiencing a decline in the number of returnees with cold temperatures returning - as seen in Pakistan in a parallel programme - Nouri said the current return figures for the country were more or less at the same level they were earlier this summer. "We can expect the rate of returns to slow down as winter approaches," he said, adding, however, that the 10 voluntary repatriation centres (VRC) located throughout the country would remain open and functioning throughout the winter. Moreover, mobile VRC teams would continue to be dispatched to remote areas as per demand and requirement, he said. As part of the programme, returnees registering for the programme are provided with transport up to the border, as well as a small cash grant and an assistance package to facilitate their return. Close to 100 percent of all returning Afghans have exited the country through the main border crossing at Dogharun in the northeastern Khorasan Province, one of two exit points designated for the operation along the country's 900-km-plus frontier with Afghanistan. According to Nouri, while UNHCR return convoys through the southern border crossing at Milak in the southeastern Baluchestan-Sistan Province remain suspended following a shooting incident at an area known as Zero Point on 1 September, they look set to resume in the near future. Regarding the current return figures of over 2,000 a day, Nouri said it had always been important for UNHCR that the repatriation of Afghans took place on a gradual basis. "This helps to ensure that the level of assistance that can be provided remains consistent and efficient to meet the demand of returns," he explained. Nouri's comments follow the arrival this week of EU Special Representative to Afghanistan Francesc Vendrell in Iran. According to the official Iranian news agency (IRNA), Vendrell arrived in Tehran on Monday and met several government officials, including Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi and the head of the national security and foreign policy commission of the parliament, Mohsen Mirdamadi, to discuss the return effort. The EU official, on his way to Afghanistan, would travel to the eastern city of Tayyebad and the Dogharun border checkpoint to see at first hand the repatriation effort on the ground. Vendrell reportedly put the number of Afghan refugees in Iran at two million, saying they all would return home within the next three years. The voluntary repatriation of Afghans is governed by a tripartite accord signed in Geneva on 3 April by Iran, Afghanistan and UNHCR. The agreement envisions an annual repatriation of 400,000 Afghan refugees.