Over 100,000 Afghans have repatriated from Iran, UN refugee agency reports

Just over three months after the start of a United Nations-backed programme to help Afghans return from Iran, the number of those repatriating has topped 100,000, a spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said today.

Overall, more than 1.3 million Afghan refugees have voluntarily repatriated to Afghanistan from neighbouring countries since the beginning of March, including over a million from Pakistan alone, spokesman Kris Janowski told reporters in Geneva.

The agency is working to prevent any possible abuse of repatriation assistance packages by interviewing all refugees prior to their return. “Since the facilitated repatriation initiative began in March, UNHCR workers in Pakistan have rejected more than 50,000 heads of households who did not appear willing to go back for good,” Mr. Janowski reported. “Those rejected seemed interested in collecting UNHCR’s travel assistance grants and family kits along with UN World Food Programme (WFP) food rations.”

To help ensure permanent repatriation, UNHCR staff inside Afghanistan also scrutinize returnees before granting aid. Efforts to screen out false claimants have saved UNHCR some $5 million in travel assistance, along with the cost of more than 50,000 family kits – which contain plastic sheets, blankets, buckets, hygienic gear and soap – plus some 6,000 tons of WFP food aid, according to the spokesman.

Meanwhile, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Olara Otunnu, continued his weeklong mission to the country today with a visit to Central Afghanistan. At the Shomali Plains, he witnessed first-hand the destruction caused by the conflict and the rehabilitation work taking place in response. He also visited schools for girls and boys as well as an orphanage in Kabul.

Mr. Otunnu was also in the capital yesterday, when he reviewed a project for street children and met with government officials as well as representatives of national and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and UN staff stationed in Afghanistan.