QUETTA, Sept 3: Over 60,000 displaced Afghans have been repatriated to their homeland since March and another 40,000 will return to Afghanistan by the end of the current year.

The chief of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Quetta, Shurichiro Asaba, said at a ceremony at the Voluntary Repatriation Centre, Baleli, on Saturday that refugees in large numbers were repatriating to Afghanistan voluntarily to take part in the reconstruction of their country.

Around half a million refugees had returned to Afghanistan from Balochistan since the launching of the repatriation programme, he said. He said the repatriation process would continue till 2006 under an agreement among Pakistan, Afghanistan and the UNHCR.

However, he said, a large number of Afghans were not ready to return to their country due to insecurity and other problems.

Afghan Counsel-General Ahmed Ali Babak assured the returning Afghans that they would not face any difficulty on their arrival in their homeland and the Kabul government would extend all possible assistance and cooperation for their rehabilitation.

“The returning Afghans will be allotted land for farming and building their homes,” he said. He said the doors of the country were open for all Afghans.

He thanked the Pakistan government and people for giving shelter and extending hospitality to Afghan people.

The UNHCR official and the counsel-general handed over repatriation documents to 160 families, comprising over 1,000 people, who left for Kandahar.

“I am very happy to be going to my country for the first time,” Mohammad Hashim, 17, said while sitting in a truck, which took his family to Urazgan. “I was born in Iran and later shifted to Pakistan. I was studying in a school here and now I will join a school in my country,” he told this correspondent.

“It is a great moment for me. I am going to my country, which I have not seen before,” said 20-year-old Jamila, who was on her way to Kandahar with her family.