An estimated 125,000 refugees have voluntarily returned to Afghanistan from Pakistan and Iran this year - nearly a 60 percent decrease on the same period last year, the United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA) said on Monday.
“This is a very substantial level of returns, and while it is lower than during the same period last year - when 295,000 Afghans returned - it is a phenomenon that is happening despite current security concerns in some parts of the country,” Adrian Edwards, UNAMA's spokesman, said in the Afghan capital, Kabul.
The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Afghanistan estimates that 2.5 million Afghans are still living in Pakistan, with another 900,000 in Iran.
Nader Farhad, UNHCR's spokesman in Kabul, said returning refugees faced many problems including deteriorating security, unemployment, lack of shelter and schooling and a shortage of health services.
Recent media reports claimed that Iran had given many Afghans living legally in the country three months to leave. However, Farhad doubted such a ruling would be enforced.
"We expect that the Iranian government will not implement such an announcement because Afghanistan doesn’t have the absorption capacity of such a huge number of refugees in only a three month period,” Farhad said.
“We will further discuss this issue in October with Iranian officials in a tripartite commission meeting in Geneva,” he added.
Since the start of UNHCR’s voluntary return operation in 2002 an estimated 3.7 million Afghan refugees had been helped home from Iran and Pakistan. UNCHR estimated a further million had returned "spontaneously".
Under the UNHCR repatriation assistance programme, refugees returning home receive US $12 per person as an initial reintegration grant to meet their immediate needs and a transport allowance of up to $37 per person.
UN refugee agency officials added that in 2006, more than 3,500 internally displaced people (IDPs) from Zhari Dasht camp in the southern province of Kandahar had been helped to return to their place of origin.
The IDPs were mainly ethnic Pashtuns from the north who had been displaced to the south during clashes between the Northern Alliance and Taliban forces in 2001.
UNHCR would continue helping another 1,000 families who had registered to be returned home from Zhari Dasht. The majority of IDP returns had been to the provinces of Faryab, Badghis, Sari Pul and Herat.
There were at least 145,000 IDPs in Afghanistan, mostly living in camps in the southern provinces, UNHCR said. It had helped more than half a million IDPs return home since 2002.
“This is a very substantial level of returns, and while it is lower than during the same period last year - when 295,000 Afghans returned - it is a phenomenon that is happening despite current security concerns in some parts of the country,” Adrian Edwards, UNAMA's spokesman, said in the Afghan capital, Kabul.
The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Afghanistan estimates that 2.5 million Afghans are still living in Pakistan, with another 900,000 in Iran.
Nader Farhad, UNHCR's spokesman in Kabul, said returning refugees faced many problems including deteriorating security, unemployment, lack of shelter and schooling and a shortage of health services.
Recent media reports claimed that Iran had given many Afghans living legally in the country three months to leave. However, Farhad doubted such a ruling would be enforced.
"We expect that the Iranian government will not implement such an announcement because Afghanistan doesn’t have the absorption capacity of such a huge number of refugees in only a three month period,” Farhad said.
“We will further discuss this issue in October with Iranian officials in a tripartite commission meeting in Geneva,” he added.
Since the start of UNHCR’s voluntary return operation in 2002 an estimated 3.7 million Afghan refugees had been helped home from Iran and Pakistan. UNCHR estimated a further million had returned "spontaneously".
Under the UNHCR repatriation assistance programme, refugees returning home receive US $12 per person as an initial reintegration grant to meet their immediate needs and a transport allowance of up to $37 per person.
UN refugee agency officials added that in 2006, more than 3,500 internally displaced people (IDPs) from Zhari Dasht camp in the southern province of Kandahar had been helped to return to their place of origin.
The IDPs were mainly ethnic Pashtuns from the north who had been displaced to the south during clashes between the Northern Alliance and Taliban forces in 2001.
UNHCR would continue helping another 1,000 families who had registered to be returned home from Zhari Dasht. The majority of IDP returns had been to the provinces of Faryab, Badghis, Sari Pul and Herat.
There were at least 145,000 IDPs in Afghanistan, mostly living in camps in the southern provinces, UNHCR said. It had helped more than half a million IDPs return home since 2002.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
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