The UN refugee agency is holding talks in Afghanistan aimed at mobilising support for the return and reintegration of Afghan refugees from Pakistan and Iran.
About five million refugees have returned from Pakistan and Iran since the fall of the Taleban in 2001, but some three million still remain there.
In camps set up for those returning, it is possible to find three generations - from the children who think it is all a fascinating game, to the old men and women who remember Soviet occupation.
Since the fall of the Taleban, refugees have been under increasing pressure from host countries to return home. Those going back have swelled their homeland's population by an estimated 20%.
UN refugee agency (UNHCR) chief Antonio Guterres says that some people are unable to go home because of continuing insecurity. "They have to live in areas where there is nothing."
The UNHCR says more than 30,000 recent returnees are competing for jobs and resources with many internally displaced Afghans.
The situation has been made worse because thousands of Pakistanis have fled into Afghanistan this year because of deteriorating security in Pakistan's tribal regions.
With the rise of the Pakistani Taleban and militant Islamic groups along the Pakistan side of the border, the UN says it now appears that parts of Afghanistan are safer for families.
Pakistan announced the plan to repatriate the refugees early in 2007, when relations with Afghanistan were particularly tense. Many did not want to go, arguing they would face a hard life if they did so.
The repatriation has been described as one of the largest of its kind in the world. But the returning refugees face an uncertain future: Afghanistan has been ravaged by war for the last 30 years.
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