Hit onerous by support cuts and sanctions, Afghanistan is struggling to soak up 4.5 million returnees since 2023.
Revealed On 12 Nov 2025
9 in 10 households in Afghanistan are going hungry or falling into debt as tens of millions of recent returnees stretch sources in poverty-stricken areas within the east and north, in response to the United Nations.
Taliban-controlled Afghanistan – battered by aid cuts, sanctions and repeated pure disasters, together with a deadly quake in August – is struggling to soak up 4.5 million individuals who have returned since 2023. About 1.5 million have been compelled again this 12 months from Pakistan and Iran, which have intensified efforts to expel Afghan refugees.
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A UN Improvement Programme (UNDP) report launched on Wednesday stated returning Afghans are reeling from extreme financial insecurity. Greater than half of returnee households are skipping medical care to afford meals whereas greater than 90 % have taken on debt, the report stated.
Their money owed vary from $373 to $900 when the typical month-to-month revenue is $100, in response to the report, whose findings have been primarily based on a survey of greater than 48,000 households.
Returnees are additionally struggling to search out first rate housing as lease costs have tripled. Greater than half report missing enough house or bedding whereas 18 % report having been displaced for a second time up to now 12 months. In western Afghanistan’s Injil and Guzara districts, “most returnees stay in tents or degraded buildings,” the report says.
The UNDP known as for pressing help to strengthen Afghans’ livelihoods and companies in high-return areas.
“Space-based restoration works,” stated Stephen Rodriques, UNDP resident consultant in Afghanistan. “By linking revenue alternatives, fundamental companies, housing and social cohesion, it’s doable to ease strain on high-return districts and scale back the danger of secondary displacement.”
Assist for Afghanistan, nonetheless reeling from the affect of many years of struggle earlier than the United States’s withdrawal in 2021, has plummeted, and donor international locations have failed to fulfill the $3.1bn the UN searched for Afghanistan this 12 months.
The Taliban authorities appealed for worldwide humanitarian help after this 12 months’s earthquake, and it has formally protested towards Pakistan’s mass expulsion of Afghan nationals, saying it’s “deeply involved” about their therapy.
‘Ladies prevented from working’
The UNDP additionally warned that restricted financial alternatives for girls in Afghanistan are exacerbating the plight of returnees, who extra steadily depend on feminine breadwinners.
Participation by girls in Afghanistan’s labour drive has fallen to six %, one of many lowest globally, and restrictions on their motion have made it practically inconceivable for girls who head households to entry jobs, schooling or healthcare, the company stated.
“Afghanistan’s returnee and host communities are below immense pressure,” stated Kanni Wignaraja, UN assistant secretary-general and UNDP regional director for Asia and the Pacific. “In some provinces, one in 4 households depend upon girls as the principle breadwinner, so when girls are prevented from working, households, communities, the nation lose out.”
“Slicing girls out of the front-line groups means chopping off important companies for many who want them most, together with returnees and victims of pure disasters,” she added.
