Afghan refugees
Afghan refugees (known as Muhajir Afghans in South Asia) are people who fled Afghanistan after the Soviet invasion in 1979 and during the civil war that followed. Since the early 1980s to the late 1990s, there were approximately 3 million Afghan refugees staying in Pakistan and about two million in Iran. Many of them also made their way to the European Union, Turkey, North America, Australia, India, and other parts of the world.
After September 11, 2001, when the United States declared war on the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, a further two to three million Afghans fled their country to evade possible U.S. bombardment. This added the total number of refugees living in Pakistan to about 5 million. As of 2002, 4.5 million Afghan refugees were repatriated through the UNHCR from both Pakistan and Iran back to their native country, Afghanistan. A total of 2.1 million registered Afghan refugees are still remaining in Pakistan and about 900,000 in Iran.[1] Unless their stay is extended due to further instability in Afghanistan, these remaining refugee are expected to leave the two countries gradually until December 2009.[2] The Government of Afghanistan is providing free land to build a house to every family that returns to the country. In October 2007 Afghanistan's parliament urged the government of Iran to halt refugee until after the winter in which Iran agreed.[3]
References
See also
External links
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
