(VOVworld) – More than 350,000 Afghan refugees returned to their war-torn homeland from Pakistan this year and the number of people returning is expected to rise, according to United Nations (UN).
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Afghan refugees waited to return home under a program by UNHCR in Nowshera, Pakistan. (Photo: EPA/VNA)
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Earlier in October, the UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR) said the number of Afghan refugees returning home from Pakistan had passed 200,000. But this week, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) updated the total, including a number of illegal and undocumented refugees, and estimated that a further 446,000 Afghans will return to their homeland by the end of this year.
According to the UNHCR statistics, Pakistan has hosted at least 1.4 million refugees from Afghanistan since January, 2016, making it the third-largest refugee hosting nation in the world.