Three million Afghans could return this year: UN

By AFP
July 12, 2025

Afghan refugees rest with their belongings after arriving at the zero point of the Islam Qala border crossing between Afghanistan and Iran, following their deportation from Iran. — AFP/File
Afghan refugees rest with their belongings after arriving at the zero point of the Islam Qala border crossing between Afghanistan and Iran, following their deportation from Iran. — AFP/File 

UNITED NATIONS: Three million Afghans could return to their country this year, a UN refugee official said Friday, warning that the repatriation flow is placing intense pressure on an already major humanitarian crisis.

Iran and Pakistan have introduced new policies affecting displaced Afghans, with Tehran already having given four million “illegal” Afghans until July 6 to leave Iranian territory.

“What we are seeing is the undignified, disorganised and massive exodus of Afghans from both countries, which is generating enormous pressures on the homeland that is willing to receive them and yet utterly unprepared to do so,” the UNHCR representative in Afghanistan, Arafat Jamal, said during a video press conference from Kabul.

“Of concern to us is this scale, the intensity and the manner in which returns are occurring.”

Over 1.6 million Afghans have already returned from Pakistan and Iran this year, the large majority from Iran, Jamal added. The figure already exceeds the UNHCR’s initial forecasts of 1.4 million for 2025.

The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees now estimates three million coming into Afghanistan this year, Jamal said.

The UN agency said over 30,000 people per day have streamed across the Islam Qala border into Afghanistan, with 50,000 crossing on July 4 alone.

“Many of these returnees are arriving having been abruptly uprooted and having undergone an arduous, exhausting and degrading journey. They arrive tired, disoriented, brutalized and often in despair,” Jamal said.