May 20, 2026 | 10:18 pm
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - A total of 1,077 refugee families, comprising 5,781 individuals, returned to Afghanistan on Tuesday, May 19, 2026, according to Bakhtar news agency, as quoted from Xinhua. The official media outlet reported that out of these, a total of 1,179 individuals had been sent to their home provinces.The remaining returnees will also be sent to their home provinces after receiving necessary assistance, including cash, SIM cards, medical assistance, and food supplies, at crossing points.According to reports, more than 2.5 million Afghan refugees, mostly from neighboring Pakistan and Iran, have returned to their home countries since early 2025, after host countries urged undocumented refugees to return.The United Nations is expecting almost 3 million Afghan to return to the country by the end of this year, citing report from Arab News, adding that more than half of them are women and children.The report mentioned that most of the returnees are skilled laborers who were born or raised in neighboring countries with "weak or no ties to their communities of origin,” said Tajudeen Oyewale, UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Afghanistan.For the first four months of 2026, about 600,000 Afghans have returned, with more than "1.7 million estimated returns from Iran and 1.1 million from Pakistan" expected in the coming months.The UN and NGOs are calling for $100.7 million for immediate border response for lifesaving assistance at key official crossing points between Iran and Pakistan.“This figure only covers 40 percent of the most vulnerable returnees, even though 70 percent meet our vulnerability criteria,” said Thamindri De Silva, Country Director of World Vision International.Read: Record Number of Immigrants Reside in EU in 2025Click here to get the latest news updates from Tempo on Google News
