- publish: 13 November 2015
- time: 11:54 am
- category: Social
- No: 2182
Some 56,000 Afghan refugees return home from Pakistan; UN says
The United Nation High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has assisted with the repatriation of some 56,000 registered Afghan refugees from Pakistan. The agency officials said.
Moreover, Proof of Registration (PoR) cards issued to Afghan refugees by the government of Pakistan have been extended from December 31, 2015 to December 31, 2017, a top UN official says.
António Guterres told reporters in Islamabad on Thursday the UNHCR under its longest-running voluntary return programme facilitated the return of around four million registered Afghans from Pakistan in the past three years.
Pakistan is still hosting about 1.5 million registered Afghan refugees, the largest protracted refugee population in the world.
More than 10.6 million people, including Afghan refugees, had benefitted from projects since their launch in 2009 under a programme called Refugees-Affected and Hosting Areas (RAHA).
RAHA has executed more than 300 health, education, infrastructure, and livelihood projects in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces at a cost of $175 million.