Spontaneous repatriation of Afghans continues

Afghan refugees in Iran are continuing to return to their country this week, a representative of the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in the northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad told IRIN on Monday. The news followed an announcement that more than 1,300 Afghans had gone home through Dogharun, Iran's main border crossing-point with Afghanistan, on Thursday, in the largest single-day return since August.

"People want to go and see for themselves what is happening," the agency's spokesman, Mohammad Nouri, said. "Prior to the fall of [the western city of] Herat, people were returning to rejoin their families in hardship situations. However, people are now returning in a far happier spirit."

Nouri explained that before the initiation of US-led retaliatory strikes on Taliban-held positions throughout the country on 7 October, about 4,000 people a week had been spontaneously returning to the country from Iran. Although people continued to return, the number doing so had dropped by half of that figure for a period of about two weeks, he said.

Asked to comment on the significance of the phenomenon, Nouri said it was too early to be certain, but that if the situation inside Afghanistan stabilised, a large-scale repatriation programme could follow. Meanwhile, he expected that the current weekly rate of return would continue throughout the winter, most probably to the southern regions of the country, where weather conditions are milder. Most of the returnees were going to Herat before heading for other parts of the country, he said.

Meanwhile, an official of the Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS) told IRIN on Monday that aid workers were beginning to return to the Mahkaki refugee camp. One of two camps administered by IRCS and previously under the control of Taliban forces, Mahkaki, with a capacity of 6,000, is adjacent to the southeastern Iranian province of Sistan-Baluchestan, two kilometres inside Afghan territory. According to Ali Karimi, the IRCS director in Sistan-Baluchestan, there are now 5,228 people at Mahkaki and about 3,400 at Mile-46, the other operational camp, 35 km to the south.

Over the past five days, some 2,000 people who had settled outside the perimeters of the Mahkaki camp had been relocated and accommodated at the Mile-46 camp, Karimi said. While describing the situation as "calm", he said some people, mainly ethnic Pashtuns, had remained outside Mahkaki after refusing to be relocated. Both camps are now in opposition Northern Alliance-held territory.

According to UNHCR, the Iranian authorities reported the transfer of some 200 displaced Afghan families from Mahkaki to Mile-46. The authorities are expected to continue with the exercise aimed at moving displaced Afghans who had spontaneously settled on the outskirts of Mahkaki.

UNHCR remains very concerned about the two camps, and continues to urge the government of Iran to allow those sheltering in them to enter its territory if they are unable to return to their homes.

Iran currently hosts over two million Afghan refugees, and maintains it cannot accept any more. Tehran has effectively sealed its 900-km border with the country, preferring to provide assistance inside Afghan territory instead.