KABUL, Nov 5: Up to 400,000 Afghan refugees will return home from neighbouring countries by the end of 2007, the UN refugee agency said on Monday.

Some 40 per cent of those returning to Afghanistan, primarily from Iran and Pakistan, are returning to relatively peaceful central provinces, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said in a statement.

Authorities in Pakistan and Iran are pressuring the remaining displaced populations to return to Afghanistan, said Salvatore Lombardo, the head of the UNHCR in Afghanistan.

There are still over 3 million Afghans living as refugees in neighbouring countries. Some 2 million registered Afghan refugees live in Pakistan and another 910,000 live in Iran.

But the real number of those living in these countries might be higher, since many of those leaving Afghanistan do not register with authorities in the host nations, officials say.

Deteriorating security in the country’s south, meanwhile, has caused some 15,000 families to leave their homes in Kandahar, Uruzgan and Helmand provinces this year, UNHCR said.—AP