Officials for Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation have informed that thousands of Afghan refugees have returned home from neighboring Iran in the past one month.
“In the past six months, 394,558 Afghan refugees have returned from neighboring Iran to Afghanistan,” said Mufti Abdul Mutalib Haqqani, a spokesperson to the ministry of refugees and repatriation.
He added that 50 percent of the returnees have been deported from the neighboring country, Iran while 50 percent of others have voluntarily returned home.
According to Haqqani, nearly 6 million Afghan refugees are living in both Iran and Pakistan, where 3.5 million of them are documented and the rest are undocumented refugees living for years.
The ministry’s spokesperson further said that officials of the country’s ministry of refugees and repatriation have held meetings with Iranian officials to discuss problems facing the Afghan refugees in the respective country, adding that acting minister of refugees and repatriation Khalil Rahman Haqqani in his recent meetings with Iranian and Pakistani ambassadors has raised problems facing the Afghan refugees in the two countries.
In connection with problems facing domestic displaced people in the country, the spokesperson of the ministry of refugees and repatriation said the ministry was planning to help all internally displaced families return their real home areas and put end to this process.
According to information of the ministry of refugees and repatriation, more than 7,000 internally displaced people have returned their home areas in the past six months. Besides, more than 143,000 needy people have received assistance in the same period.
On the other hand, provincial director of refugees and repatriation for Helmand Mawlavi Allahdad Enqyadi has informed that UNHCR has provided cash assistance to 766 internally displaced people to renovate their homes that have been destroyed due to war in the province. Each family has received $700.
It is worth mentioning that a quadrilateral meeting will be soon held between Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and UNHCR in neighboring Iran to discuss problems facing the Afghan refugees in the neighboring countries.
Samiullah Momand
64,000 Afghans return home in past one month
