More than a quarter million Afghan refugees have returned home mostly from Pakistan so far this year with the support of UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), a statement of the body released here Tuesday said.
"Since January this year, UNHCR has assisted a total of 251,880registered Afghans to repatriate from the neighboring Pakistan and Iran," the statement said.
It noted that 248,951 refugees have returned from Pakistan while another 2,929 refugees from Iran.
Moreover, UNHCR would provide a cash grant of 100 U.S. dollars to each person upon his or her return to motherland Afghanistan.
Over 5 million Afghans have returned home since the fall of the Taliban regime in late 2001, of which more than 4.3 million mostly from Pakistan have been repatriated with UNHCR's assistance, the statesmen added.
In the light of a UN policy, the UNHCR-assisted voluntary repatriation operation from Pakistan to Afghanistan will be temporarily suspended at the end of October for the annual winter break and would be resumed in March 2009.
Over 3 million Afghans refugees with some 2 million in Pakistan and more than 1 million others in the neighboring countries of Iran and Tajikistan reportedly have yet to return to their homeland.
Source:Xinhua
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