Since then repatriation has been slow, despite the fact that both Iran and Pakistan, struggling with their own economic problems, have been encouraging the refugees to return home. Last year Iran launched a major voluntary repatriation scheme aimed at many of the estimated 1.4 million Afghans on its territory, which led to more than almost 200,000 returning to their homeland, either independently or with support from the United Nations. Drought But repatriation programmes were scaled back after it became clear that Afghanistan was suffering its worst drought in almost 30 years. That drought, combined with continued fighting and allegations of continuing human rights abuses, has led to thousands more Afghans being internally displaced or even crossing international borders. Internal displacement now stands at around 150,000, while more than 60,000 new Afghan refugees fled to Pakistan during the last four months of 2000.
Afghan refugees have a variety of reasons for wishing to remain in exile.
Many are religious or ethnic minorities who allege that they have suffered human rights abuses at the hands of the Taleban movement, which is largely Sunni and ethnic Pashtoon. Others were officials under the former Soviet-backed government of Dr Najibullah. Refugee groups maintain that various Taleban restrictions on female education and employment have also prompted a renewed exodus of Afghan intellectuals. The Taleban themselves insist that people are leaving Afghanistan for purely economic reasons and say that UN sanctions against the movement are exacerbating an already desperate economic situation. The past few years have also seen a rise in the number of Afghan asylum seekers arriving in the West, some of whom have previously spent years living as refugees in Iran or Pakistan.