UN in talks on Afghan returnees

Some three million Afghan refugees still remain in Pakistan and Iran

The UN refugee agency and the Afghan government have pledged more support for refugees returning to Afghanistan.

A joint statement said better homes, schools, medical facilities and job opportunities were needed if Afghans still abroad were to return for good.

About five million Afghans have gone home since the fall of the Taleban in 2001. Some three million remain abroad.

Correspondents say worsening security and few jobs make it difficult for Afghanistan to absorb more returnees.

Insecurity

The joint statement came after a conference in Kabul aimed at mobilising support for the sustained return and reintegration of Afghan refugees.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) co-chaired the conference with Afghanistan's foreign minister.

We thought things would be better, there would be medical assistance and things but we have not seen anything like that so far - we are living on the hard ground and we have no food Afghan returnee Shah Bibi In pictures: Afghan refugees

The BBC's Pam O'Toole says Afghan refugees have been under increasing pressure from host countries to return home since the fall of the Taleban.

Some three million Afghan refugees still remain in Pakistan and Iran.

Five million have done so, swelling their homeland's population by an estimated 20%.

Some had land, houses, or families to go to - others were not so lucky.

UNHCR chief Antonio Guterres said: "Some of them were not able to go back to their areas of origin due to insecurity. They have to live in areas where there is nothing... They have no jobs. So it's a very challenging situation."

Shah Bibi's family returned to Afghanistan five months ago.

They are living a hand-to-mouth existence in a tent, with winter coming on.

"We thought things would be better, there would be medical assistance and things. But we have not seen anything like that so far. We are living on the hard ground and we have no food," she said.

'Dark times'

The UNHCR says more than 30,000 recent returnees are living in tents.

They are competing for jobs and resources with many internally displaced Afghans - people who have left their homes because of poverty, crop failure, or insecurity.

Some internally displaced people live in a camp in the western province of Herat.

One man told the BBC: "Poverty has brought us dark times. There was fighting, there was suffering, displacement, the cold.

"If you don't have anything, you have to leave. My seven-month-old son died. I myself am still critically ill."

Mr Guterres says the challenge is how to create conditions to allow these Afghans to live a normal life in their homeland.

If that does not happen, he says, there is a risk of massive migration out of Afghanistan.