56,000 Afghan refugees repatriated from Pakistan in 2015

At least 56,000 registered Afghan refugees have been repatriated from Pakistan so far this year with the support of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) under its largest and longest running voluntary return program, an official said Thursday.

The official from the UNHCR said Pakistan is still hosting almost 1.5 million registered Afghan refugees, the largest protracted refugee population in the world.

However, Pakistan's Ministry of States and Frontier Regions said that at present almost 1.53 million registered and estimated 1 million undocumented Afghans are living in Pakistan.

The repatriation of registered Afghan citizens is guided by principle of voluntarism according to the Tripartite Agreement signed between Pakistan, Afghanistan and the UNHCR.

The official said the UNHCR has facilitated the return of almost 4 million registered Afghans from Pakistan since 2002.

The Refugees Affected and Hosting Areas (RAHA), a project by the UNHCR, has completed over 300 projects in different areas of the country with the cost of 175 million U.S. dollars to facilitate refugees in health, education, infrastructure, and livelihood sectors.

Millions of Afghan refugees rushed to neighboring Pakistan after the Soviet Union war started in late 1970s and later when U.S.-led NATO forces attacked Afghanistan in 2001.

A majority of Afghan refugees are settled in different parts of Pakistan, particularly 62 percent in northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 19 percent in south-western province of Balochistan and 11 percent in eastern Punjab province.

In July this year, Pakistan launched a countrywide campaign for the registration of the Afghans living in Pakistan illegally, with a plan to complete the exercise by Jan. 2016. Endit