Over 30,000 Afghan refugees return home in one week

Kabul : More than 30,000 Afghan refugees have returned to their homeland from Pakistan, Iran and Turkey over the past week, said an official from the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation.

"Among them, around 2,500 are from Pakistan, about 190 from Turkey, and the remaining from Iran," Abdul Mutalib Haqqani, spokesperson for the ministry, said on Friday.

According to the ministry, moreover, a total of 1.78 million Afghan refugees have returned from abroad over the past year, reports Xinhua news agency, quoting local media outlet TOLOnews.

The Afghan caretaker government has been repeatedly calling upon Afghan refugees to end living abroad as refugees and return home to contribute to the rebuilding of their war-torn homeland.

Last month, the ministry announced that a total of 1,779,603 Afghan refugees have returned to their homeland from Pakistan, Iran, and other countries over the past 12 months.

"It is worth mentioning that currently, we have 7 million refugees in foreign countries and 3 million displacements inside Afghanistan," said the Deputy of the ministry, Mawlavi Abdul Rahman Rashid, at a government programme.

According to Ahadi, to address the issues faced by Afghan migrants and returnees, the ministry has signed 93 Memorandum of Understanding (MoUs) with its partner organisations, seven agencies, and 14 educational institutions during the period.

Over 7,88,000 Afghan internally displaced and returned families, with the collaboration of international aid organisations, have received financial, foodstuffs, and non-foodstuffs during the cited period, Ahadi asserted.