ZAHEDAN, Sistan-Baluchestan Province Some 255 Afghan refugees returned home on Sunday from Zahedan in the southeastern border Province of Sistan -Baluchestan making the total number of Afghan voluntarily returning from the province over the past 11 days at 2,286.

Head of the Provincial Foreign Nationals and Refugees Affairs Bureau Safar Islami said the Afghans, 128 men and 127 women from 68 families, were taken on bus and trucks from the Al-Ghadir Camp in Zahedan to the Dogharoun border checkpoint in the northeastern Iranian Province of Khorasan.

The new round of repatriation follows recent visit of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers to Iran where he toured a refugee camp in Dogharoun border checkpoint.

The UN commissioner's visit followed the implementation of a tripartite accord signed in Geneva on April 3 by Iran, Afghanistan and the UNHCR on the repatriation of Afghan refugees living in Iran according to which 400,000 Afghan refugees will head for home in the current year.

Iran has been sheltering more than two million Afghan refugees fleeing from civil wars and severe drought in Afghanistan over the past two decades.

Following U.S. attacks on Afghanistan, Iran set up two camps, mile-46 and Makaki, on the Afghan side of its eastern borders to prevent a fresh influx of refugees into the country.