Afghan Refugee Crisis: Over 200,000 Return Amid Intensified Humanitarian Needs

The Taliban’s Ministry of Refugees and Repatriates has announced that over two hundred thousand Afghan refugees have returned to the country in the past three weeks, including a number of prisoners, who were forcibly displaced from Pakistan, Iran, and Turkey.

Call for International Assistance

Speaking to the state-controlled national radio and television, the ministry’s spokesperson, Abdul Matlab Haqqani, emphasized that among those returning, several are prisoners, which has exacerbated the urgent humanitarian needs at the border crossings. Haqqani urged the international community to respond to the critical needs of these returnees, considering the significant volume of forced returns. The expulsion process of Afghan migrants without documents from Pakistan and Iran began approximately two years ago and has intensified dramatically in recent months. According to data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), from the beginning of this year until November 6, a total of 2.4 million Afghan migrants have returned from Iran and Pakistan. This staggering figure has placed Afghanistan on the brink of a major humanitarian and management crisis as winter approaches.