Over 5,000 Afghan refugee families return home in single day

Kabul, July 11 (IANS) More than 5,000 Afghan refugee families, with the vast majority of them from Iran, returned to their homeland Afghanistan in a single day on Thursday, the state-run Bakhtar news agency reported on Friday.

A total of 4,852 families returned from Iran, and the remaining 153 others returned from Pakistan, the news outlet added.

The massive scale return of refugees continues amid the Afghan interim government's call on the host country, Iran, to exercise restraint and slow down the refugees' expulsion, as Tehran asked the Afghan nationals living in Iran illegally to leave the country.

In a recent statement, the Office of the Prime Minister of Afghanistan's interim government, as reported by Bakhtar News Agency, expressed gratitude to Iran for hosting Afghan refugees over the past four decades and called for continued respect for the rights of refugees.

More than half a million Afghan refugees have returned to their country, Afghanistan, from Iran over the past month, acting Deputy Prime Minister for Administrative Affairs Mawlawi Abdul Salam Hanafi told reporters on Thursday.

More than 1.5 million Afghan refugees have reportedly returned to Afghanistan from Iran and Pakistan so far this year, while the return of refugees continues.

On June 26, over 30,000 Afghan refugees returned home from Iran through the Islam Qala border crossing in western Herat, marking one of the largest mass returns recently, according to a local official.

Following this massive wave of returns, all necessary supplies, including water, food, and immediate medical care, have been provided to the returnees, said Mawlawi Ahmadullah Muttaqi, Provincial Director of the Information and Culture Department, reported Xinhua news agency.

Afghanistan shares two key border crossing points with Iran, one in western Herat province and the other in Nimroz province. Recently, both crossings have witnessed a sharp increase in the number of returning refugees.

--IANS

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