Return of millions of Afghans from Pakistan and Iran pushes Afghanistan to brink, UN warns
Speaking at the UN briefing held in Geneva via video link from Afghanistan’s capital Kabul, UNHCR Afghanistan representative Arafat Jamal said that a total of 5.4 million people have returned to Afghanistan since October 2023, most of them from two neighboring countries.
“This is a huge event, and the speed and scale of these rollbacks have brought Afghanistan almost to the brink,” Jamal said.
Pakistan launched a sweeping crackdown to deport migrants without documents in October 2023, urging people in the country to leave of their own accord to avoid arrest, forcible deportation and forcible deportation of others. Around the same time, Iran began cracking down on immigrants.
Since then, millions of people have flooded across the border into Afghanistan, including people who were born in Pakistan decades ago and built lives and started businesses there.
Jamal said that 2.9 million people returned to Afghanistan last year alone, adding that this was “the highest number of returns we have witnessed to any country.”
Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have criticized the mass deportations. Jamal said Afghanistan was already struggling with a dire humanitarian situation and a poor human rights record, especially regarding women and girls, and the mass influx of people, accounting for 12% of the population, was putting the country under severe pressure.
He added that approximately 150,000 people have returned to Afghanistan in just one and a half months since the beginning of this year.
Afghan authorities are providing returnees with care packages that include some food aid, cash, phone SIM cards and transportation to places where their families may be. But those returns strained resources in a country already struggling to cope with a weak economy and the effects of a severe drought and two devastating earthquakes.
In November, the UN development program said that nine in 10 families in Afghanistan’s high-return areas had resorted to what are known as negative coping mechanisms (either skipping meals, going into debt or selling belongings to survive).
“We are deeply concerned about the sustainability of these returns,” Jamal said, noting that while 5 percent of those who returned said they would leave Afghanistan again, more than 10 percent said they knew someone who had already left.
“I would like to underline that these decisions to undertake dangerous journeys do not stem from a lack of desire to remain in the country, but rather from the fact that many people are unable to rebuild livable and dignified lives,” he said.
