Kabul: Afghan refugees may be a growing source of regional tension as fewer are returning home while more people leave the country for jobs and security, the UN refugees chief said today.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres told a conference that while more than five million out of eight million Afghan refugees have returned home since 2002 after the Taliban was ousted from power, the number of those returning is falling.

"The numbers have decreased sharply in recent years and at the same time the number of Afghans leaving the country mostly because of unemployment are also rising," Guterres told the meeting.

Although those who have returned represent the largest voluntary repatriation programme in the world and some 20 per cent of the country s population, Guterres admitted the fact that so many Afghans remained outside the country "may represent a source of tension in the region."

The conference, held in capital Kabul and attended by some 30 countries and international organisations, was called amid pressure from Iran and Pakistan to send home millions of refugees they began hosting when war started in the 1970s with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

As the Taliban-led insurgency gains pace, insecurity, food shortages, lack of access to land, shelter and education were discouraging people from settling in Afghanistan, Guterres said.

Although Pakistan and Iran still host nearly three million Afghan refugees and want to increase repatriation, Guterres said destitute Afghanistan would be challenged to cope with such high numbers of returning people.
Source : PTI