Afghanistan: Families in free-fall, abandoned and ignored

While Afghanistan was at the centre of the international community’s attention before August 2021, it has since faded from the global agenda. NATO countries have withdrawn leaving millions of vulnerable Afghans to face deepening humanitarian needs with scarce international attention and support. 

“This is my fifth visit to Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover in 2021. Each time I have seen a deepening humanitarian crisis that is hardest for women and girls, that has received only lip service from the Western countries who pledged to ‘never forget them.' Where is the aid to families who suffer alone and abandoned? Where are the diplomats and envoys who could mobilise desperately needed international support for Afghan families in need, and bring relief to women and girls here?" said Egeland.  

"This week I have met with mothers who have nothing to give their children, and who fear the coming winter. Infant malnutrition is soaring, and communities are at rock bottom, with nowhere to turn. Humanitarians have less than a third of the funding needed, forcing organisations to make impossible decisions about who can be helped.”  

Afghanistan is experiencing one of the largest return movements in the world. In 2025 alone, 2.9 million Afghans returned from Pakistan and Iran, while more than one million people have returned to Afghanistan so far this year.  

The scale and speed of these returns places enormous pressure on communities, housing, livelihoods and already overstretched public services. Months of sporadic fighting between Afghanistan and Pakistan has added to the uncertainty facing civilians already unable to support themselves.  

“When I visited the Iran-Afghanistan border last year, and again this week during my visit to our Community Resource Centre in Kandahar, I met many families who had returned to Afghanistan. They arrive here with almost nothing, and will be met with little or no support," said Egeland. 

“This week I have listened to families forced to live in the most basic of shelters, sometimes lacking roofs and with nothing but sticks and discarded packaging for walls. They must get the opportunity to rebuild their lives and once again support themselves with dignity.”  

Women and girls across Afghanistan continue to face severe restrictions imposed since 2021, including restrictions on education, work, movement, and access to basic services. These challenges are often even greater for women and girls who return to the country, whose families have little or no income and are often forced by their lack of resources to find shelter in areas with no access to healthcare or education.   

It is vital that donors invest not only in the emergency response, but also in longer-term initiatives that can help returnees reduce their dependence on humanitarian assistance. 

“Today in Afghanistan, returnee families are trapped in a terrible position,” said Egeland. “Political limitations to engagement with Afghan authorities further restrict opportunities to identify long term solutions, leaving humanitarian organisations struggling to meet ever-growing, urgent needs. The international community must engage meaningfully with the Afghan authorities to ensure that people here do not pay the price for shifting geopolitical priorities.”  

Mohammad Ali, a father of six, who returned from Iran and now lives on the outskirts of Herat province, explained, “For the past year that I am back here from Iran, I seldomly got any emergency assistance. I appreciate that [support] but this kind of assistance does not sustain life. I am willing to work but there is no job or [lasting] assistance that can secure mine and my children’s future.”