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UNHCR says 6 million returned to Afghanistan
BBC News··1 Sept
UNHCR spokesperson Charlie Goodlake said about 6 million people have returned to Afghanistan in under three years. He called it the largest return movement in recent history. BBC reporting from Torkham describes deportees arriving from Pakistan and Iran. Nazia, 35, said she had never been to Afghanistan before crossing. Returns this year from those neighbours already reached another million.
Prism
What It Means For You
- Returnees at Torkham often spend only a few nights in UN tented transit sites.
- Families arriving without shelter or capital face immediate housing and income gaps.
- Women and girls return under Taliban rules that bar much secondary school and university study.
What's Happening
- Pakistan and Iran are enforcing removals that UNHCR says increasingly include registered Afghans.
- Sarwar said he left Afghanistan 45 years ago and returned with seven brothers in a 40-person convoy.
- Inside transit tents, temperatures around 41C were reported as families waited.
Why The Removals Accelerated
- Expulsions from Pakistan intensified after fighting with Afghanistan last October, the BBC notes.
- Iran claimed last year to host more than four million undocumented Afghans.
- Iran's deportations accelerated after its 12-day war with Israel and the US in June 2025.
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