KABUL, Afghanistan, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- The rate of displaced Afghans returning to the country from neighboring Iran and Pakistan is at its lowest level since 2002, U.N. agencies said.
Nearly 6 million Afghans fled the violence that followed the Soviet invasion in 1979.
The United Nations reports, however, that as many as 2.5 million Afghan refugees still live in Pakistan and Iran.
Nearly 2 million refugees returned home in the immediate aftermath of the ouster of the Taliban in 2002, but U.N. figures show returns slowed to about 278,000 in 2008, the U.N. humanitarian news agency IRIN reports.
From March to December 2009, meanwhile, the rates of return from Pakistan trickled to slightly more than 48,000 people. Returns from Iran were at roughly 5,500 during the same period.
Those rates, the United Nations said, are the lowest since 2002.
Noor Mohammad Haidari, a senior adviser at the Afghan Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation, said insecurity and slow reconstruction are impeding refugee returns. He noted, however, that refugees will have to come home eventually.
"Refugees cannot live in Iran and Pakistan indefinitely, they will have to return to their country sooner or later," he said.
