ISFAHAN Some 155 more Afghan refugees returned home from this Central Province on Sunday as part of the voluntary repatriation program based on an agreement reached between Iran and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
The provincial Bureau for Foreign Immigrants and Aliens Affairs said the returning Afghans were included in the third stage of the repatriation program without their support.
Since the beginning of the current year (started March 20, 2000), 488 Afghans have been listed in the program while over 9,000 others have returned to their country with UNHCR financial help.
The UNHCR puts the total number of Afghans in Iran at 1.4 million.
Iranian authorities say there are 700,000 Afghans illegally residing in the country.
More than 60,000 Afghans have already been repatriated since the start of the UNHCR-sponsored voluntary repatriation program on April 8.
Under an agreement signed in February between the UNHCR and Iran, some 100,000 refugees are to return to Afghanistan in the space of six months.
It gave refugees without supporting documents the option to seek asylum within six months or apply for repatriation.
Afghans have been blamed for contributing to the high rate of joblessness among Iranian youth.
Labor Minister Hossein Kamali, in May, said that about two million refugees, most of them Afghans, are working illegally in Iran.
(IRNA)