Pakistan remains host to world's largest refugee population

Pakistan remains host to the largest refugee population in the world with 1.9 million registered Afghan refugees. An official of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees(UNHCR) Qaisar Afridi says that more unregistered members of the registered Afghan families including new born babies have been registered, taking the figure of registered Afghans in Pakistan to 1.9 million from last year's 1.7 million. The Pakistani Ministry of States and Frontier Regions, which deals with Afghan refugees, says that there are nearly one million unregistered Afghan refugees, who are living outside the refugee camps in the country. More than 3.5 million Afghans have returned home from Pakistan with UNHCR's help since 2002. The repatriation movement that followed the fall of the Taliban regime in late 2001 was spontaneous and overwhelming.

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