Pakistan world’s largest host of refugees: UNHCR

UNHCR report states Pakistan hosting as many as 1.145 million Afghan refugees

APP

April 16, 2018

An Afghan refugee family wave from a truck before their departure to return to their home country at the repatriation centre of UNHCR on the outskirts of Peshawar on March 1, 2018. Photo: AFP

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has been declared the largest country to provide shelter to refugees in the world by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).

As per the UNHCR report, Pakistan was hosting the largest number of refugees in the country and as many as 1.45 million hailed from Afghanistan.

The report added that Pakistan unconditionally hosted millions of refugees and provided best possible facilities to these affected people of different countries especially Afghan citizens when the war was at its peak.

Pakistan continued hosted Afghan refugees for more than three decades, it said.

Similarly, the voluntary repatriation of Afghan refugees from Pakistan to their own country was also the largest in the world, the report said.

Since March 2002, UNHCR has facilitated the return of approximately 4.1 million registered Afghans from Pakistan, it added.