Afghanistan is not ready for mass ‘returnees’
From our UK edition
The word ‘return’ suggests something voluntary, even restorative: the closing of a long chapter of exile and the beginning of a new one at home. That is not what is happening on Afghanistan’s borders. We are witnessing a mass expulsion. Three million Afghans have been pushed out of Iran and Pakistan over the past year, and 150,000 alone in the past six weeks, according to the UN. This is while Afghanistan’s population has risen 12 per cent from 40 million in 2023. These people are being deposited into a country that lacks the economic capacity, institutional infrastructure, and political conditions to absorb them.
