Millions of forgotten Afghan refugees face a looming crisis this winter, caught between a life of grinding poverty in camps abroad and the prospect of returning to the harsh rule of the Taliban militia. Pakistan and Iran, home to more than three million refugees who fled their homes after the Soviet invasion 20 years ago, are pressing to send the Afghans back, blaming them for high unemployment, crime and drug addiction. In an attempt to avert a disaster in the world's largest refugee population, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Sadako Ogata, met Pakistan's military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, last Friday and flies to Afghanistan today before heading for Iran. Western countries are reluctant to fund the refugees' repatriation while the Taliban are enforcing their brutally strict Islamic edicts. As a result, the Afghan refugees remain largely overlooked, victims of what Ogata calls 'asylum fatigue' and 'donor fatigue'. The UNHCR asked for $7.5 million for its Afghan programme this year, but received just $2m. 'I think donors don't see a way through. The conditions in Afghanistan are a very big part of the equation,' said Ogata. 'The international community has to be given clearer assurances of the intentions of the Taliban authorities on the issue of security, the treatment of women, education, health.' But their life outside the country is little better. In Pakistan's refugee camps in Peshawar, Quetta and Karachi, many Afghans go without proper healthcare or education. Poverty is the norm and long-term heroin abuse widespread. More than 60,000 Afghans have returned home from Pakistan this year. Each family is given just £60, food and plastic sheeting to restart their lives. Many slip back into Pakistan within months. 'We are under pressure from the host country,' a UN source said. 'There is a growing hostility to Afghan refugees in Pakistan. Many of them are going back out of desperation rather than deciding things are getting better.'