QUETTA, Feb 16: The United Nation refugees agency will resume assisting Afghan refugees who want to return to Afghanistan, restarting the voluntary repatriation programme from March 1. The process was suspended after the murder of a staff member in November last.

According to the UNHCR officials, the programme, which has assisted about 1.9 million Afghans to return home from Pakistan in the past two years, is expected to help around 400,000 more refugees to repatriate during 2004.

The United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) suspended the repatriation programme after Bettina Goislard was killed by gunmen in the Afghan city of Ghazni in November last.

The decision to resume repatriation come after the UNHCR took additional security precautions for its staff and received assurances from the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan that they were combating militants who had been targeting the aid workers as part of a campaign against the interim government in Afghanistan.

The training of the UNHCR repatriation staff began this week and assistance to refugees wanting to return home will start on March 1. Initially, repatriation from all over Pakistan will be facilitated through the main border crossings at Chaman in Balochistan and Torkham in the NWFP.

The UNHCR officials said the repatriation before proceeding to the border - including recognition tests to prevent anyone receiving assistance a second time - would be carried out at the UNHCR repatriation centres in Quetta and Peshawar.

Refugees who pass through the proceedings in Pakistan will receive a travel grant, food and some other items of assistance on arrival at the UNHCR encasement centres in Afghanistan.

Under voluntary repatriation programme of the UNHCR more than 1.5 million Afghans were assisted to return to their homeland from Pakistan in 2002 following the removal of Taliban government in Kabul. A further 350,000 refugees went back to Afghanistan in 2003.

The UNHCR has also assisted the return of more than 400,000 Afghan refugees from Iran since the start of repatriation in 2002. Another quarter million Afghans have returned home from Iran without the help of the UNHCR during last two years.