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Arafat Jamal, UNHCR representative in Afghanistan. Photo: Courtesy — UNHCR
GENEVA:
Some 270,000 Afghans have returned home from Pakistan and Iran so far this year, the UN said on Tuesday, warning that the escalating war in the Middle East risked increasing numbers.
UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency, said 110,000 Afghans had returned from Iran and another 160,000 from Pakistan since the beginning of 2026.
And the numbers appear to have risen since the Middle East erupted on February 28, when the United States and Israel unleashed a barrage of attacks on Iran, and Tehran responded with drone and missile strikes against Israeli and American interests across the region.
Since then, there have been about 1,700 returns from Iran to Afghanistan each day, Arafat Jamal, UNHCR representative in Afghanistan, told reporters in Geneva.
Speaking from Islam Qala, on the Afghanistan-Iran border, he said the situation there was “deceptively calm.”
“The returns are orderly, but they are fraught with tension and apprehension,” he said, adding that with hostilities escalating elsewhere, “I fear there is more to come.”
“We are preparing for massive returns.”
He noted that Afghanistan “is facing the ramifications of what is happening with Iran,” while clashes broke out along the Afghan border with Pakistan.
The new war in the Middle East, he warned, “is overlapping an existing war on another border,” Jamal said.
UNHCR highlighted that the latest crises occurred after returns to Afghanistan had already been “exceptionally high” in recent years.
More than five million Afghans had returned from neighboring countries in the past two years, including 1.9 million who returned from Iran last year alone.
Jamal warned that “many Afghan families are now facing cycles of displacement: first forced to flee Afghanistan, then displaced again within Iran due to the conflict, and now returning once again to Afghanistan.”
“And upon returning to Afghanistan, the triple displaced enter a spiral of precariousness and uncertainty.”
Meanwhile, returns from Pakistan have stabilized in recent weeks, as the main crossing point at Torkham remains closed due to tensions there, Jamal said.
But he warned that “movements could increase considerably once the border reopens.”
UNHCR and UNICEF, the UN children’s agency, said on Tuesday they were working to strengthen their capacity to operate on the borders and inside Afghanistan.
But “given the scale of returns and the financial constraints facing humanitarian operations, additional support will be needed if arrivals increase,” UNHCR said, without specifying the amount needed.
