| Ahmad Husseini, the Iranian Interior Ministry official in charge of refugee affairs, said on 30 March that the repatriation of Iraqi refugees began after the ouster of Saddam Hussein and it will continue until the refugee camps are emptied, IRNA reported. He said the Ashrafi Isfahani refugee camp and the Dezful refugee camp in Khuzestan Province have already been cleared. Husseini said the repatriations are part of an Interior Ministry-United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) plan. Husseini said 70,000 Iraqis have returned home voluntarily. He added that in a 2001 survey there were 202,000 Iraqi refugees in Iran, and that number is down to 125,000 currently. UNHCR chief Ruud Lubbers announced the repatriation of Iraqis in July 2003 during a visit to Iran |