Afghan repatriation clears the 500,000 mark

Voluntary repatriations of thousands of Afghan refugees are continuing, with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Iran reporting that over a half a million had left that country. "The repatriation programme to Afghanistan from Iran is working well," a UNHCR spokeswoman, Marie-Helene Verney, told IRIN from the capital, Tehran. Numbers were smaller than last year, but that was to be expected considering the vast number of repatriations earlier on, she said. According to Verney, many Afghans who had been waiting to return for years rushed to do so as soon as it was possible last year, adding, however, that now, with the programme being in its 17th month, numbers had naturally fallen. Since the UNHCR-assisted effort was launched in April last year, 523,229 Afghans have left Iran for home, close to 150,000 since the beginning of this year alone. Current figures indicate that between 1,000 and 1,500 Afghans a day were being repatriated from Iran, primarily through the main border crossing of Dogharun in northeastern Khorasan Province, with a much smaller number through Milak in southeastern Baluchestan-Sistan Province. Only 5,574 Afghans have used the latter exit route since the beginning of this year. Meanwhile, insecurity has continued to play a major part in discouraging refugees from returning. "This deterioration of the security situation is for now only limited to some areas of Afghanistan. Unfortunately, it creates an overall sense of lawlessness in Afghanistan, which is probably one of the biggest challenges to the voluntary repatriation programme," Verney said. Under the terms of a tripartite agreement signed between the UNHCR, Iran and Afghanistan, some 400,000 returns were to take place in the first year (April 2002 to April 2003), with a further 500,000 returns over the same period the following year. "The first year target was met. Current figures indicate that the target for the current year may not be met," Verney said, adding, however, that the agency had initiated a mass information campaign among the Afghan refugee community, including many rural areas, to improve perception of the programme. As part of the voluntary repatriation effort, returnees register at one of 12 voluntary repatriation centres located throughout the country - comprising the cities of Mashhad, Zahedan, Qom, Esfahan, Kerman, Shiraz, Yazd and Arak, as well as two in Tehran. At these centres, they are provided with an assistance package, including a small monetary grant, to facilitate their return. Regarding the current composition of returnees from Iran, most were ethnic Pashtuns and Tajiks, returning to Kabul and the central region, followed by the northern region and the west. Few choose to return to the south or east of the country. Moreover, the vast majority of all assisted returnees went back in family groups. "Even single people link up with groups, or extended families, for the journey back," Verney said. Since the fall of the Taliban in December 2001, some 2.2 million Afghans have gone home from Iran and Pakistan, the two countries hosting the largest numbers of Afghan refugees. "There is no doubt that larger numbers have left Pakistan than Iran, and continue to do so," Verney said, attributing this to the vast differences in standards of living between the two countries. "Many Afghan refugees in Iran are working, and fear that a return to Afghanistan will mean a significant drop in their standards of living," she noted. "This is not the case in Pakistan, standards of living in Pakistan being much lower than in Iran."