War and Huge Numbers of Returning Refugees

The history of Afghanistan during the last 40 years is about war, armed conflicts, mass outmigration, internal displacement, labour migration, migration from rural to urban sites and about the integration of huge numbers of returning refugees.

More than 75 % of the 30 million Afghans (2015) left their homes at least once between 1979 and 2009. This continues till today. Armed conflicts are the main reasons for displacement. But the general deterioration of the security situation is as important for people to leave their homes. Conflict-caused displacement increased again since 2010.

The future of the country, of the returned families and IDPs, highly depends on the education and qualification of the younger generations. DVV International and ANAFAE are committed to providing new hope, confidence and personal perspectives through education for young people to stay in their communities, in their country, as the education programmes in 22 Education Centres show.

Afghans – second-largest group of new arrivals in Europe

The exodus of Afghans 2015 reached new records in 2015. Hundreds of thousands, mostly young people left via Iran and Turkey to Europe and Germany, due to insecurity and lack of future prospects.

Afghans make up the second-largest group of new arrivals amid Europe’s huge migrant influx.

UNHCR Afghanistan now shares the 2015 End-Year report on Conflict-induced Internal Displacement.

The report provides key facts and figures on conflict-induced internal displacement in Afghanistan, with general considerations on the situation, the protection challenges and the needs of the population newly displaced in 2015; an overview on trends at the regional level as well as on key events in the seven major Provinces producing and/ or hosting conflict-induced IDPs; and some considerations on the implementation of the National IDP Policy. It is noteworthy that internal displacement increased by 96% in 2015 when compared to the prior year. 31 out of 34 Provinces have been affected by conflict-induced internal displacement, either hosting IDPs or producing IDPs or both. Similar trends in conflict-induced displacement are widely anticipated in 2016.

The report is now available on the IDP Web-Page of the UNHCR Afghanistan website.

http://www.unhcr.af/Applications/SitePages/Default.aspx?idx=0&sitepageid=33