Some 10,3-million people worldwide were officially classified as refugees at the beginning of this year, a decrease of 14% since last year, the UN announced yesterday on World Refugee Day.

The drop was mostly due to the almost two million Afghans who returned to their country, three-quarters of them from Pakistan and the rest from Iran, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said at its Geneva headquarters.

Overall, some 2,4-million people were repatriated in 2002 and in addition to the Afghans they included 88 000 Angolans, 76 000 Sierra Leoneans, 53 000 Burundians, 37 000 Bosnians, 32 000 Somalis and 32 000 East Timorese, the UNHCR said.

Asia continued to house most of the world's refugees, with 4,2-millon, followed by Africa (3,3-million) and Europe (2,2-million).

The number of people who became refugees in 2002 also fell compared with previous year's figures - by 41% to 300 000.

The overwhelming majority of the displaced were in Africa and included 105 000 Liberians, 39 000 from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), 29 000 Burundians, 24 000 Somalians, 22 000 from the Ivory Coast and 20,000 from the Central African Republic.

The number of refugees granted asylum in third countries fell by 44% in 2002 to 19 600 people, UNHCR said.

The US, which tightened its immigration policy following the September 11, 2001 attacks, granted asylum to 8 100 people in 2002, a decrease of 56% compared to the previous year.

Out of the 587 000 people who asked for assylum in the world's most-industrialised countries in 2002, the majority asked to settle in Europe (465 000) and most of them in EU countries (381 600).

Britain was the top choice for asylum seekers (110 700), followed by US (81 100) and Germany (71 100).

To mark World Refugee Day, UNHCR announced the beginning of a two-year operation to return some 150 000 refugees to Angola, mostly from neighboring Zambia and the DRC.

Some 440 000 Angolans have left the southern African country as a result of a 27-year-old civil war there, which ended with a truce signed in April 2002.

The number of people in UNHCR's care at the beginning of 2003 inched up slightly to 20,5-million, from 19,8-million a year before.

In addition to the refugees, UNHCR also had responsibility for 4,5-million people who have been deplaced within their countries, one million assylum seekers and some 3,5-million repatriated refugees still in need of aid. - Sapa-AFP.