ISLAMABAD: More than 100,000 UNHCR assisted voluntary Afghan refugees returned home on Thursday. A total of 3.7 million have returned home with UNHCR assistance since 2002; still, 1.6 million registered Afghans who fled violence in their country in 1979 live in Pakistan.



“The return of 100,000 signifies the fact that despite security issues and other socio-economic hardships, a significant number of Afghans are eager to return home,” said Megesha Kebede, UNHCR representative in Pakistan. However Kebede noted that returns were consequently increasing the responsibility on UNHCR and the international community to further advance efforts to support Afghanistan for a more sustainable return.



Kebede has hailed Pakistan’s generous support for hosting the biggest refugee population for the longest period of time in UNHCR’s history, despite not being a signatory to the 1951 refugee convention. Of the total 100,565 refugees that returned this year, the majority, some 68,425, returned from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa followed by Balochistan with 16,930 individuals. Some 4,164 were from Sindh and 11,046 from Punjab.



Out of these, over 64 per cent were living in the urban or semi-urban areas of Pakistan. Close to 36 per cent lived in organised refugee villages across Pakistan.



Published in The Express Tribune, October 1st, 2010.