By IRNA
Tehran : A key UNHCR envoy here Monday thanked Iran for its warm hospitality towards Afghan refugees and called on Tehran to arrange their gradual repatriation.
In a press conference here Monday, the United Nations Assistant High Commissioner for refugees Judy Cheng-Hopkins said the repatriation process should be gradual so that Afghan government can manage the home coming Afghans easily.
To a question by IRNA, Mrs. Cheng-Hopkins said Afghan government is not scary of accepting Afghans after repatriation and what’s the core problem is lack of necessary infrastructure and poor security.
She reiterated that conditions are not so much ripe for instant return of the refugees and a gradual repatriation process is the ideal target.
To another question by IRNA, Mrs. Cheng-Hopkins said everybody is aware of Iran’s hosting large number of refugees despite harsh economic conditions and pressures. So the key is engagement of the international community into the affair and gradual voluntary repatriation, she added.
She said the UNHCR is providing the Afghan refugees with necessary health care facilities so as to check spread of any disease in the host country.
Elsewhere in the press conference the UNHCR official said she is visiting Iran to assess situation of the Afghan refugees and Afghans’ returns.
“We have achieved incredible success since 2002 with the return to date of almost five million refugees from Pakistan and Iran back into Pakistan. Five million is incredible in terms of the numbers.
But we still have about three million refugees left in these two countries: Pakistan and Iran. And these three million are cases of the people who are not very sure of when they are going to return….
Since 2005 the number (of the repatriating Afghans) has dropped to a very very low number — a negligible number of returns: may be thousands a year. So then the caution becomes what do we have to do with these three million left in these two countries? What kinds of strategies, what kinds of policies do we have to discuss with governments of these two countries?” said the UNHCR Assistant.
Cheng-Hopkins said during her visits to the camp and urban Afghan refugees in Iran’s Kerman, she had found out that they were satisfied with their living and had been provided with necessary facilities for residence.
Somewhere in the press conference, the UNHCR Deputy Representative Jean-Claude Forget said only 20 or less of the 160,000 Afghan refugees, repatriated since April on grounds of illegally residing in the country, had been the documented and registered refugees. Mr.
Forget said the reason was they had declined to show their cards to the authoritative officials.