Over 86,000 Afghans repatriated via Dogharoun since April

  
 

 

  
 

 

  
 

        

  
         Mashhad, Khorassan prov, June 17, IRNA -- Head of the Bureau for Alien and Foreign Immigrant Affairs (BAFIA) of the northeastern province of Khorassan Mohammad Olama here Monday said that some 85,909 Afghans have returned home since the UNHCR plan for the voluntary repatriation of Afghans began in April.
       Olama said over 12,000 Afghans had returned to Afghanistan outside the frameworks of the plan.
       The voluntary repatriation of Afghans is governed by a tripartite accord signed in Geneva on April 3, 2002 by Iran, Afghanistan and the UNHCR which envisages the repatriation of 400,000 nationals of that country by the end of the current year.
       Since the implementation of the plan, all legal and political grounds for further stay of Afghan refugees in Iran have been removed and nationals of that country who remain are no longer subject to the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees, officials said.
       Afghan refugees will be required to present passports and valid visas to enter Iran as of the date of the accord, and illegal entrants will be dealt with according to the laws of the land.
       Under the accord, Afghans would be repatriated through the Dogharoun and Milak border checkpoints, respectively in Iran's northeastern province of Khorassan and the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan.
       However, the Milak border was closed about two weeks ago after clashes between local chiefs in Afghanistan's neighboring Zaranj province heightened to further deteriorate instability.
       The return of Afghans was accordingly followed through the northeastern border exit point of Dogharoun.
       Although the Milak border exit has now been reopened, but UNHCR will not allow any convoy of Afghans to cross into the Afghan territory until the Organization's security fact-finding team dispatched to the region reports calm and security in Zaranj.
       Iran has been sheltering more than two million Afghan refugees fleeing from civil wars and severe drought in Afghanistan over the past two decades.

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