Kabul: Over a quarter million Afghans have returned home this year from Pakistan and Iran, many of them reportedly due to economic and security uncertainties faced in exile, the United Nations said today.

The destitute country is struggling to absorb the massive numbers with many returnees unable to access work, land, shelter and other basic services, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a statement.

It said that since January it had helped nearly 249,000 Afghan exiles to return from Pakistan and nearly 3,000 from Iran.

"Many said they returned to Afghanistan because they could not afford the high cost of living in exile amid the current food and fuel crisis.

"Others cited security uncertainties as a reason for leaving Pakistan s North West Frontier Province," it said. The area has seen intensified fighting between security forces and Al-Qaeda-linked militants.

Many of the returned Afghans had gone back to their places of origin but some had been unable to because they had no land, shelter or work or because security was poor.

During Afghanistan s nearly three decades of civil war and turmoil, people fled their homeland in droves, mainly to neighbouring Pakistan and Iran.

More than five million Afghans have returned home since the fall of the Taliban regime in late 2001,according to UNHCR.

The agency gives registered returnees 100 dollars in cash, offers some shelter and helps them to access water and other facilities.
Source : PTI