Radio Zamaneh said the flood across the border was prompted by the inability of many refugees to find work in Iran now that new Western sanctions have taken hold and are impacting the Iranian economy.
The Netherlands-based radio station quoted Afghan officials as saying close to 200,000 Afghans have returned home of their own volition over the last six months. They said that was a 74 percent increase over last year.
Once the Taliban were expelled in 2001, many Afghans returned home in large numbers. But that movement ended years ago with more than one million Afghans preferring to stay in Iran where they could find comparatively well-paying jobs as unskilled laborers.
Until this year, just about the only Afghans returning home were those corralled by the Iranian police, bussed to the boarder and forced into Afghanistan.
Afghan officials in Western Afghanistan told Radio Zamaneh that returning refugees this past six months have given various reasons for their return, including unemployment, lack of income, high prices in Iran and restrictions on their children attending Iranian schools.
With the onset of cold weather, the migration of Afghans is about to end, not to resume until after Now Ruz.