The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has announced that nearly 8 million citizens of Afghanistan have left their homeland since 2020.
In a published report, the organization stated that among these, one million Afghan citizens have sought refuge in European countries, while 85 percent have gone to neighboring countries.
The report mentions that since the current government came to power in Asad 1400 (August 2021), economic inflation in the country has significantly increased, and during this period, more than half of the population has experienced poverty.
The United States government signed a peace agreement with the caretaker government in Doha, Qatar, on February 29, 2020, and many believe that this agreement paved the way for the collapse of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the entry of the current government into Kabul.
The IOM emphasized that about 70 percent of Afghans migrating to Iran say they have left their homeland due to a lack of job opportunities.
The organization added that the number of Afghan returnees from Iran is also significant, with nearly one million Afghans returning to their country in 2023. Seventy percent of the returnees did not have residency documents.
The report states that many citizens of Afghanistan prefer to migrate to other countries through illegal means due to difficulties in obtaining passports and visas, often paying human traffickers to cross borders.
The IOM report indicates that Afghans without access to travel documents face greater threats, including human rights violations while crossing borders and in neighboring countries.
The organization notes that this group of Afghans encounters “cruel, inhumane, and degrading” treatment.
Furthermore, the International Organization for Migration has called on countries to halt the deportation of Afghan migrants until conditions for their return are “safe, dignified, and voluntary.”
It is noteworthy that in recent months, the governments of Pakistan and Iran have increased the deportation of Afghan migrants lacking residency documents. According to statistics provided by the Ministry of Refugees and Returnees of the current government, more than a thousand Afghan migrants are deported daily from these two countries.
