UN: More Than 250,000 Refugees Return To Afghanistan -- AKI-AdnkronosNew York, 7 Oct. (AKI) - The United Nations' refugee agency says over a quarter of a million Afghans have returned home this year from neighbouring Pakistan and Iran due to security and economic worries.
Since January this year, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees has assisted 248,951 registered Afghans to repatriate from Pakistan and 2,929 from Iran.
“Many said they returned to Afghanistan because they could not afford the high cost of living in exile amid the current food and fuel crisis," the agency said in a statement. "Others cited security uncertainties as a reason for leaving Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province."
Most of this year’s returnees – some 63 per cent – have gone to eastern Afghanistan, while another 13 per cent have returned to the capital, Kabul.
More than five million Afghans have returned home since the fall of the Taliban regime in late 2001, including over 4.3 million that have been repatriated with UNHCR assistance, mostly from Pakistan, Iran and other countries.
In an effort to address some of the longer-term needs of the returnees, UNHCR and the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs will co-host an international conference in Kabul on their return and integration on 19 November.
The UNHCR-assisted voluntary repatriation operation from Pakistan will be temporarily suspended at the end of this month and will resume in March 2009.
No comments:
Post a Comment