4,000 Afghans married Iranian women in Tehran

Some 4,000 Afghan refugees have married Iranian women in Tehran alone during the last 20 years.

Hamid Ahmadi, Head of the Bureau of Alien and Foreign Immigration of the General Governor in the capital, yesterday said: "These 4,000 marriages have yielded a total of 15,000 children, who are all considered Afghan citizens who must leave Iran when they become 18 years old."

Since the beginning of repatriation launched on April 10, he added, 7,891 Afghan refugees have left Tehran.

"Everyday, some 800 Afghan refugees are repatriated to Afghanistan from the two camps set up in Tehran," he said, adding that more than 14,000 Afghan refugees have registered to return home.

He added that 790,000 of the 813,000 foreign refugees living in Tehran are Afghans. However, according to informal sources, more than one million Afghans still live in the Iranian capital.

Deputy Chairman of the Bureau of Alien and Foreign Immigration Affairs once declared repatriation a failure failure since 130 Afghans who had been repatriated were arrested in the central city of Yazd.

He said that "the insecure situation and lack of jobs had forced them to come back to Iran."

Based on a trilateral agreement between Iran, the interim government of Afghanistan and UNHCR signed on March 19, 400,000 Afghan refugees were to be repatriated by the end of this year.