Over 500 at-risk Afghans transferred to Germany in nearly two years

Fidel Rahmati

Khaama Press

German media reports that since the start of the program to accept at-risk Afghans into Germany, 530 individuals have been transferred to the country.

According to reports, the number of Afghan admissions through this program has been limited due to security checks, which began in August 2022.

German media, quoting a spokesperson for the Interior Ministry, wrote that Germany intends to transfer one thousand at-risk Afghans to the country monthly through this acceptance program.

These reports indicate that the program was launched in August 2021, with only 13 Afghan entries recorded in the Interior Ministry since August last year.

The at-risk Afghan acceptance program includes individuals vulnerable to Taliban persecution, torture, or harassment or those endangered due to their previous work in critical areas such as justice, education, or politics.

The discussion around accepting at-risk Afghans into Germany comes amid concerns over the increasing presence of Afghan migrants accused of crimes in the country.

Recently, Nancy Faeser, Germany’s Interior Minister, stated, “We are working hard to ensure that we can once again deport dangerous Islamists and violent criminals to Afghanistan.”

Amid heightened concerns over national security, Germany has intensified efforts to deport criminal refugees, including Afghans, back to Afghanistan. This initiative comes in response to increased incidents of attacks involving knives, prompting authorities to prioritize national safety.

The humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan has exacerbated the challenges faced by Afghan migrants in Germany. As the Taliban regime tightens its grip on power, reports of persecution and worsening conditions for civilians have raised alarm globally.

Over 500 at-risk Afghans transferred to Germany in nearly two years
read more

UN spokesperson says women’s rights will be highlighted at Doha meeting

A UN spokesperson said on Sunday that the aim of the Doha meetings is to “encourage the Taliban to engage with the world in a coordinated and orderly manner for the benefit of the Afghan people.”

Stéphane Dujarric, the UN spokesperson, said on Sunday, June 23, that human rights, especially women’s rights, “will be highlighted in all discussions at the Doha meeting.”

Dujarric emphasized that the Doha meetings are “part of a process and not a one-time event” and that women and Afghan civil society will continue to be part of this process.

The Taliban will send their representatives to Qatar next week for a two-day meeting in Doha, which will include senior UN officials and special representatives from 25 countries for Afghanistan.

This is the third UN-led meeting and the first to include Taliban officials, but the exclusion of women and civil society representatives from the main meeting has sparked widespread criticism.

Tirana Hassan, executive director of Human Rights Watch, told Reuters that “excluding women [from the Doha meeting] risks legitimizing the Taliban and causing irreparable harm to the UN’s credibility as a defender of women’s rights and meaningful participation.”

Agnes Callamard, Secretary-General of Amnesty International, stated that “marginalizing important discussions on human rights is unacceptable and sets a very damaging precedent” regarding the third Doha meeting.

Rosemary DiCarlo, the UN’s political affairs chief, and Rosa Otunbayeva, the UN special envoy to Afghanistan, are expected to meet separately with Afghan civil society groups after they meet with the Taliban.

Meanwhile, Otunbayeva stated that the Doha meeting will focus on the private sector and combating drug trafficking. She also mentioned that the upcoming meeting “has created significant expectations that realistically cannot be met in a single session.”

Critics have pointed out that the UN, by excluding women’s representatives and discussions on women’s rights from the upcoming Doha meeting, is overlooking the dire human rights situation in Afghanistan.

The absence of women’s voices in the meeting undermines efforts to address the severe restrictions imposed on women by the Taliban, who have banned women from most aspects of public life, including employment and education.

UN spokesperson says women’s rights will be highlighted at Doha meeting
read more

G7 countries oppose composition and agenda of third Doha meeting on Afghanistan: Report

According to reports, G7 countries, including the US and UK, oppose the composition and agenda of the third Doha meeting.

Special representatives from some countries, including the US, might not attend the meeting, reports said.

On Monday, June 24, reports indicate that G7 members are dissatisfied with the performance of UNAMA chief Rosa Otunbayeva in Afghanistan, afintl.com reported.

Western countries’ disagreements extend beyond the composition and agenda of the third Doha meeting; they also want a special representative for Afghanistan appointed quickly and have asked the UN to expedite this.

The Taliban oppose the appointment of a new representative for Afghanistan.

The world’s seven largest economies have asked the UN to include Afghan women and civil society members in the Doha meetings and have protested their exclusion from next week’s meeting.

Some diplomats said Canada and France hold a “tougher stance” than other countries.

Sources indicate that some countries, including the US, are “not optimistic” about Rosa Otunbayeva’s activities as the UNAMA chief, suspecting she may be “aligned with Russia.”

However, Western countries, including G7 members, believe that finding a solution to Afghanistan’s current crisis is impractical without a special representative.

Reports indicate that Western diplomats will not attend the third Doha meeting at a high level, similar to the second round. The UN had previously confirmed that Secretary-General António Guterres will not participate in the third Doha meeting.

meanwhile, António Guterres is “tired” of the Afghanistan issue. According to UN officials, the third Doha meeting will be chaired by Rosemary DiCarlo, the UN Deputy Secretary-General.

Previously, a US State Department spokesperson said that Thomas West and Rina Amiri, US special representatives, do not plan to attend the third Doha meeting.

Since the Taliban took power, the human rights situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated significantly. Restrictions on women’s education, employment, and freedom of movement have been severe.

The humanitarian crisis has worsened, with millions facing food insecurity and inadequate healthcare. The international community continues to express concern over the lack of fundamental rights and the dire living conditions in Afghanistan.

G7 countries oppose composition and agenda of third Doha meeting on Afghanistan: Report
read more

Muttaqi: Afghanistan’s Interaction with the World Has Progressed

He also added that there is no concern inside or outside the country that opponents of the Islamic Emirate can rely on.
Amir Khan Muttaqi, the acting Foreign Minister of the Islamic Emirate, said in a meeting with the ministry’s employees that the interim government’s interaction with countries and global institutions has made good progress.

Muttaqi cited the travels of interim government officials to various countries as part of the diplomatic advancements of the interim government with the world.

The acting Foreign Minister said: “Kabul has hosted many foreign representatives from different countries and organizations, and delegations from these countries have had meetings in various sectors, all of which indicate that Afghanistan has now made significant progress in its interaction with the world.”

He also added that there is no concern inside or outside the country that opponents of the Islamic Emirate can rely on.

Amir Khan Muttaqi added: “There is no concern seen inside or outside the country that would give hope to the enemies. The system is getting stronger day by day, and more importantly, so is the unity of the Afghan people and their support for the current system.”

Meanwhile, some experts believe that progress in relations between Afghanistan and other countries will help Afghanistan find solutions to various challenges it has faced for years.

“The Islamic Emirate must consider what needs to be done to formalize this interaction. I think the world has many specific demands from the Islamic Emirate, one of which is the rights of women and girls,” said Mohammad Sanger Amirzada, an international relations analyst.

“Firstly, interact with neighboring countries, secondly with the Islamic world countries, and finally with the world,” said Sayed Zia Hossaini, another political analyst.

Amir Khan Muttaqi’s remarks on the progress of the interim government’s interaction with the world come while no country has yet recognized the Islamic Emirate government.

Muttaqi: Afghanistan’s Interaction with the World Has Progressed
read more

Qaeda Commander at Guantánamo Bay Is Sentenced for War Crimes

Reporting from Guantánamo Bay, Cuba

The New York Times

A former Qaeda battlefield commander who admitted that his insurgents killed 17 U.S. and allied forces in wartime Afghanistan in the early 2000s will spend eight more years in prison under a plea agreement disclosed on Thursday.

The prisoner, Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, 63, has been in U.S. custody since 2006 and struck the deal two years ago. The military judge, Col. Charles L. Pritchard Jr., officially disclosed the terms at Guantánamo Bay moments after a military jury ordered Mr. Hadi to serve 30 years in prison, the maximum sentence in his war crime case.

The outcome was part of the arcane system called military commissions, which allows prisoners to reach plea deals with a senior official at the Pentagon who oversees the war court but requires the formality of a jury sentencing hearing anyway.

The jury of 11 officers rejected arguments by Mr. Hadi’s defense lawyer that the prisoner deserved leniency, if not clemency, for his early humiliations in C.I.A. custody, subsequent cooperation with U.S. investigators and failing health.

“Justice was served today,” said Bill Eggers, whose son Capt. Daniel Eggers, 28, was killed in a roadside bombing carried out by Mr. Hadi’s fighters. Mr. Eggers, who has been attending proceedings in the case since 2017, said he viewed the jury decision to give Mr. Hadi the harshest of possible sentences a just conclusion, the plea deal reduction notwithstanding.

Mr. Eggers and his daughter were among six people who testified last week about their loss in the two-week sentencing trial.

Mr. Hadi looked stoic as the sentence was announced. Unlike the jury, he was aware of the deal that reduced his sentence to 10 years, starting with his guilty plea in June 2022. He is disabled by a paralyzing spine disease and a series of surgeries at Guantánamo and sat in court in a padded therapeutic chair, listening through a headset providing Arabic translation.

The case was an unusual one at the court, which was created to prosecute terrorism cases as war crimes after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. While prosecutors cast Mr. Hadi as a member of the Qaeda inner circle before those attacks, there was no suggestion in his plea agreement that he knew about the plot beforehand.

Instead, he admitted to being the commander of insurgent forces who unlawfully used the cover of civilians in attacks that killed 17 U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan in 2003 and 2004, for example having a fighter pose as an ordinary driver in a taxi cab laden with explosives.

He also admitted to being a Qaeda liaison to the Taliban before the Sept. 11 attacks, and to providing some of his forces to help blow up monumental Buddha statues in Afghanistan’s Bamiyan Valley, a UNESCO World Heritage site, in March 2001.

The prisoner, who says his true name is Nashwan al-Tamir, was captured in Turkey in 2006 and was held incommunicado for about six months by the C.I.A. By law, he was not entitled to credit for that period, or the 15 years and eight months he had spent in U.S. detention before his 2022 guilty plea. If he were to be released, in June 2032, under the deal, he would have been held for more than 25 years as a prisoner of the United States.

But Mr. Hadi’s future is uncertain. War court prosecutors have argued that a prisoner may be held at Guantánamo even after his sentence ends as long as the war against terrorism continues. Alternatively, under the deal, the United States could transfer him to the custody of a partner nation, if one can be found that is capable of providing specialized health care and agrees to monitor his activities.

Members of his defense team, which included Army, Air Force and Marine lawyers, looked downcast as the sentence was announced.

“He expressed remorse,” said Susan Hensler, a civilian lawyer who led the team. “He understands the seriousness of what he pleaded guilty to, but he is counting on the United States to fulfill its promise of transferring him to a partner nation with a health care infrastructure to care for him.”

Carol Rosenberg reports on the wartime prison and court at Guantánamo Bay. She has been covering the topic since the first detainees were brought to the U.S. base in 2002.

Qaeda Commander at Guantánamo Bay Is Sentenced for War Crimes
read more

Afghan refugees’ problems in Pakistan compounded by fear of deportation

Voice of America

Every morning, Zakira prepares Afghan dumplings known as mantu and waits for her sons Arsalan, 12, and Alyan, 10, to return from school when they take the mantu to the nearby streets to sell.

“As refugees in Pakistan, this is how we earn a living,” said 38-year-old Zakira, who goes by her first name, adding that her husband, a laborer, “can’t often find a job.”

Zakira, a teacher, told VOA she can’t find a job in Pakistan because of her refugee status, and that is why her children work.

“It is difficult to see them selling food on the street instead of playing like other kids,” she said. “But how will we pay the bills if they don’t work?”

Zakira and her husband hold Afghan citizen cards issued in 2017 by Pakistan to Afghan refugees. More than 800,000 of the 3.1 million Afghan refugees have the cards.

“There are no benefits in having these cards, as no one would give me a job with it,” Zakira said.

Another 1.35 million are registered as Afghan refugees, while more than 800,000 Afghans in Pakistan are undocumented.

Around 600,000 new arrivals were in the country before the Pakistani government started deporting undocumented Afghan refugees.

Deportations started last year

Pakistan began deporting undocumented Afghan refugees last September. According to the United Nations, about 575,000 refugees were returned, of whom 89% were undocumented.

Many of the documented refugees are also afraid, as local media reported in March that the government of Pakistan was preparing for the repatriation of Afghan citizen cardholders.

Loqman Jalal, 27, who was born in Pakistan and holds a citizen card, told VOA that Afghan refugees, whether documented or undocumented, fear deportation.

“There is fear that in the second phase, Pakistan will deport refugees holding ACC and then PoR [proof of registration] holders,” said Jalal, a father of three who is concerned about their future.

In April, Pakistan extended the proof of registration cards for Afghan refugees to June 30.

The U.N., however, said an extension of three months would not lessen the uncertainty the Afghan refugees are facing in Pakistan.

Pakistan extends registered Afghan refugees’ stay

Jalal said that the uncertainty makes it difficult for Afghan refugees in Pakistan “to live a normal life.”

“Everything changed for us after the regime change [Taliban’s takeover] in Afghanistan. We face many problems including the possibility of being deported,” he said.

In May, the U.N. said it assisted the return of 18,700 refugees from Pakistan in the first quarter of 2024, a 14-fold increase from the same period in 2023.

“Fear of arrest/deportation, abuse by police or state authorities related to the proof of registration cards extension in Pakistan, no added protection value of the PoR card, and night raids” were some of the reasons, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Sophie Jambazishvili, a senior protection officer for UNHCR in Kabul, told VOA that individuals with PoR cards, UNHRC asylum-seeker certificate holders and ACC holders were included among the refugees forcibly deported to Afghanistan.

“We have seen quite a variety of individuals with different legal backgrounds,” Jambazishvili said about those deported by Pakistani authorities.

She said that Pakistan has not started the second phase of deportations, which will include the ACC holders.

“I have to say that we thought that would start. Thankfully, it has not yet fully been implemented,” she said.

‘Nothing left in Afghanistan’

Many refugees, including Zakira, fear that Pakistan will start deporting registered refugees.

She said that after living for decades in Pakistan, they have “nothing left in Afghanistan.”

“I am sad for my children. If deported, I don’t know what would happen to them.”

Zheela Noori contributed to this report, which originated in VOA’s Afghan Service.

Afghan refugees’ problems in Pakistan compounded by fear of deportation
read more

As climate change imperils Taliban’s shift from opium, impact could be felt worldwide

The Washington Post

June 21, 2024 at 2:00 a.m. EDT

Prolonged droughts attributed to climate change are making it hard for Afghans to grow other field crops and fruits, but hardy opium poppies can still thrive.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Two years after the Taliban banned opium, Afghan farmers turning to alternative crops are discovering that many no longer grow easily here because of the impact of climate change, imperiling poppy eradication efforts.

For decades, farmers in southern Afghanistan relied on opium poppies to make a living in their parched desert landscape. Even as prolonged drought dried out rivers and turned fields so salty that they glowed white in the sun, the hardy poppies flourished.

The Taliban ended that after seizing power in Afghanistan three years ago, banning opium on religious grounds. But farmers in the former poppy heartland say they can’t make a living with typical alternatives like wheat and cotton, which have tumbled in price as they’ve flooded the market since the opium ban took effect. Some other field crops and fruits that once grew here — including eggplants, pomegranates and apricots — have become difficult, and in some cases impossible, to cultivate because of the harsh conditions that Afghan researchers attribute to climate change.

Some farmers are abandoning their fields. Others are weighing a return to poppy cultivation or are refusing to comply with the ban.

“If they can’t cover their expenses, they’ll go back to growing poppies,” said Shams-u-Rahman Musa, a top agriculture official in Kandahar for the Taliban-run government, adding that the government is aware of farmers’ frustration. “We’re trying our best to find solutions,” he said.

If the Taliban fails to engineer a successful transition from poppies to other crops, the impact could be felt well beyond Afghanistan’s borders. Afghanistan was the world’s largest exporter of opium before the Taliban takeover, according to the United Nations, representing more than 80 percent of global supply before production plummeted last year.

Musa said the government is now trying to identify crops that can grow in dry and salty conditions. While saffron and pistachio are among the most promising alternatives, the choice of variety will be crucial for success. Afghanistan is appealing to other countries to supply modified seeds that are hardy enough to grow here.

A dramatic rise in temperatures

The drop in farming revenue is particularly pronounced in the south of Afghanistan, where about two-thirds of the country’s opium poppies were grown before the ban.

While average annual temperatures in Afghanistan have risen by up to 3.2 degrees Fahrenheit over the past half-century, which is twice the global average increase, the trend has been even more dramatic in the south of the country, where temperatures rose by up to 4.3 degrees Fahrenheit, Afghan officials say.

Many trees in Afghan orchards were once able to resist temporary heat waves thanks to deep roots. But groundwater levels in the Helmand River Basin dropped by an average of 8.5 feet between 2003 and 2021. Many climate models predict worsening conditions over the coming decades. Winter precipitation, which is particularly important for farmers, is set to decline significantly in the south.

In the past, rain leached salt out of fields, but prolonged drought has in recent years driven a surge in soil salinity. “Poppy grows well, but not much else,” said Abdul Jalal, an irrigation official in Kandahar.

The poorest farmers are hit the hardest. Ataullah Noorzai, a 30-year-old villager in Kandahar province, said his soil has become so salty that he can grow only wheat and barley, which are comparatively resistant to salinity. But his revenue from these crops is so meager that he has already borrowed 550 pounds of wheat from a neighbor to sell in the market and must find a way to repay the loan.

Some of his neighbors have been able to bring in fresh water through canals and wash out much of the salt, then plant more-valuable pomegranates, he said. Noorzai said that he couldn’t afford to do this and that his remaining hope — that long periods of extensive rain will eventually wash the salt away — appears increasingly remote.

Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban government’s chief spokesman, said efforts are underway in all provinces to identify new and higher-value field crops and trees that could bring relief to farmers.

At an experimental farm in Kandahar, the previous, U.S.-backed government years ago started testing the resistance of pomegranate trees to heat. Almost 80 types are now grown between bullet-riddled blast walls.

But to the people who work on this farm, the effort to outmaneuver climate change appears to be an increasingly lost cause. Pomegranate trees are viewed by some government officials as a go-to alternative because the roots are so deep that they don’t easily dry out. But Jalal, the local irrigation official, said he was shocked to see how poorly the trees grow in desert areas with high salinity.

Even some of the researchers’ early successes no longer look promising. Amid prolonged drought over the past years, their peach trees dried out from the inside and had to be cut down, Jalal said, and the experimental grapevines became sunburned.

Farmers’ earnings take a hit

The farmers’ difficulties bode ill for an opium ban that, initially, appeared to be a success. Last year, satellite images showed that opium production had dropped by 99.9 percent in Helmand and by almost 90 percent in Kandahar, once the heartland of cultivation.

Share this articleNo subscription required to readShare

But in the provincial capitals of Afghanistan’s south, officials are now concerned about how much wheat and cotton they see coming to market. Even before the current harvest, oversupply of these crops had already begun to push down prices.

While tensions are palpable in the markets of southern Afghanistan, there are some here who benefit. Afghanistan’s exports are booming, boasted cotton trader Abdul Manan at a market in Helmand, flashing a broad smile.

But he was soon drowned out by farmers. “Tell the truth,” they yelled, ignoring a police officer who was assigned to follow a Washington Post team and stood nearby.

“When I grew poppy, it was five times more profitable and it was way easier,” said Haji Wazir, 55, a farmer. “Now, we can’t even cover our costs anymore.”

Signs of discontent with the ban are also mounting elsewhere in the country. Last month, violent clashes broke out between opium-growing villagers and security forces in northeastern Afghanistan, where the Taliban has struggled to assert its power. Poppy cultivation in Badakhshan province declined only by about 56 percent between 2021 and last year, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.

Adding to the frustration and resentment, farmers said, is that wealthy landowners who were able to store poppies before the ban are now able to sell them for export at far higher prices.

Even some Taliban officers assigned to enforcing the opium ban say something is amiss. As Ahmad Jan Frotan went from house to house in central Afghanistan’s Parwan province on a recent afternoon searching for violators of the ban, he “felt pity,” he acknowledged.

“People lack money,” said Frotan, a 28-year-old police officer, who studied agriculture while fighting the Americans. He appealed to the Taliban’s supreme leader to “work for all men and women of Afghanistan.”

Seeking an alternative

Hayatullah Rohani, the head of the narcotics department in Afghanistan’s second-biggest city, Herat, said he hopes industrialization can replace revenue from opium farming.

Herat is an industrial center, and Rohani wants hundreds more factories to be built. “Each of them could employ 500 people” — not only farmers but also former addicts, he said.

Over 10 percent of the population was estimated by Afghan officials to use drugs when the Taliban took power three years ago. While more-recent figures are not available, there appear to be few drug users left on the streets of Kabul, Herat and other cities. Thousands were forced into rehabilitation centers.

At a center in Herat, addicts, who are herded by guards wielding sticks, live in cramped buildings that resemble a prison camp.

Rohani was eager to talk about how the men in the center are taught to repair factory equipment and cellphones, in preparation for the country’s industrialization. But just as anywhere in Afghanistan, money is tight to run a facility, Rohani complained, including for the swimming pool he had hoped to construct to help with addicts’ recovery.

“Unfortunately, the hot season is coming,” he said.

As climate change imperils Taliban’s shift from opium, impact could be felt worldwide
read more

UN envoy defends failure to include Afghan women in upcoming meeting with the Taliban in Qatar

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United Nations’ top official in Afghanistan defended the failure to include Afghan women in the upcoming first meeting between the Taliban and envoys from 22 countries, insisting that demands for women’s rights are certain to be raised.

U.N. special envoy Roza Otunbayeva was pummeled with questions Friday from journalists about criticism from human rights organizations at the omission of Afghan women from the meeting in Qatar’s capital, Doha, on June 30 and July 1.

The Taliban seized power in 2021 as United States and NATO forces withdrew following two decades of war. No country officially recognizes them as Afghanistan’s government, and the U.N. has said that recognition is almost impossible while bans on female education and employment remain in place.

Human Rights Watch Executive Director Tirana Hassan said that, in the face of the Taliban’s tightening repression of women and girls, the U.N. plans to hold a meeting “without women’s rights on the agenda or Afghan women in the room are shocking.”

Amnesty International Secretary General Agnes Callamard said, “The credibility of this meeting will be in tatters if it doesn’t adequately address the human rights crisis in Afghanistan and fails to involve women human rights defenders and other relevant stakeholders from Afghan civil society.”

Otunbayeva, a former president and foreign minister of Kyrgyzstan, insisted after briefing the U.N. Security Council that “nobody dictated” conditions to the United Nations about the Doha meeting, but she confirmed that no Afghan women will be present.

U.N. political chief Rosemary DiCarlo will chair the meeting, Otunbayeva said. She will attend, and a few of the 22 special envoys on Afghanistan who are women will also be there.

The meeting is the third U.N.-sponsored gathering on the Afghan crisis in Doha. The Taliban weren’t invited to the first, and Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said they set unacceptable conditions for attending the second in February, including demands that Afghan civil society members be excluded from the talks and that they be treated as the country’s legitimate rulers.

Undersecretary-General DiCarlo visited Afghanistan in May and invited the Taliban Foreign Minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, to attend the upcoming meeting. The Taliban accepted and said they are sending a delegation.

“We do hope that delegation will be led by de facto Foreign Minister Muttaqi,” Otunbayeva said, but the Taliban may send another minister.

Just before the Doha gathering, there will be a hybrid meeting with Afghan civil society representatives from inside and outside the country, Otunbayeva said. And on July 2, immediately after Doha, “we’ll be meeting all the civil society people.”

The Taliban have used their interpretation of Islamic law to bar girls from education beyond age 11, ban women from public spaces, exclude them from many jobs, and enforce dress codes and male guardianship requirements.

Otunbayeva said the upcoming gathering will be the first face-to-face meeting between the Taliban and the envoys and will focus on what she said were “the most important acute issues of today” — private business and banking, and counter-narcotics policy.

Both are about women, she said, and the envoys will tell the Taliban, “Look, it doesn’t work like this. We should have women around the table. We should provide them also access to businesses.” She added that “if there are, let’s say, 5 million addicted people in Afghanistan, more than 30% are women.”

Otunbayeva told the Security Council the U.N. hopes the envoys and the Taliban delegation will speak to each other, recognize the need to engage, and “agree on next steps to alleviate the uncertainties that face the Afghan people.”

The U.N. expects a continuation of the dialogue at a fourth Doha meeting later in the year focused on another key issue: the impact of climate change on the country.

Lisa Doughten, the U.N. humanitarian office’s finance director, told the council that “the particularly acute effects of climate change” are deepening Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis, saying over 50% of the population — some 23.7 million people — need humanitarian aid this year, the third-highest number in the world.

“Extreme weather events are more frequent and more intense,” she said. “Some areas in Afghanistan have warmed at twice the global average since 1950” with the country experiencing increasing droughts and deadly flash flooding.

Otunbayeva said another outcome from the Doha meeting that the U.N. would like to see is the creation of working groups to continue talks on how to help farmers replace poppies producing opium with other crops, how to provide pharmacies with medication to help addicted people, and how to address crime and improve banking and private businesses.

As for what the U.N. would like to see, she said, “we need badly that they will change their minds and let girls go to school.”

Otunbayeva said Afghanistan is the only country in the 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation that doesn’t let girls go to school, which she called “a big puzzle.” Afghanistan has been very male-dominated and “we want to change the minds” of young people from such a traditional society towards women, Otunbayeva said.

The humanitarian office’s Doughten told the council “the ban on girls’ education is fueling an increase in child marriage and early childbearing, with dire physical, emotional and economic consequences.” She also cited reports that attempted suicides by women and girls are increasing.

UN envoy defends failure to include Afghan women in upcoming meeting with the Taliban in Qatar
read more

Taliban to relocate TTP fighters from border to other provinces of Afghanistan

Khaama Press

Reports say that the Taliban are planning to relocate members of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) from border areas to other provinces in Afghanistan.

This decision comes after months of discussions between the Taliban, Pakistan, and China.

According to sources, the Taliban in Afghanistan are working to move TTP fighters from areas along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, particularly in Khost province, to other provinces in Afghanistan.

However, the TTP has expressed concern over the Taliban’s decision to relocate their fighters, and negotiations on this matter are still ongoing.

This decision follows recent attacks in Pakistan and an assault on Chinese citizens in Besham, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Efforts to prevent Taliban attacks have intensified, mediated by China, after an attack on a vehicle carrying Chinese engineers in Besham, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which resulted in at least six deaths, including five Chinese nationals.

The Pakistani government has accused the Taliban of sheltering Pakistani Taliban fighters since their return to power. Now, the Afghan Taliban plans to relocate these fighters from border areas to northern and western provinces, though specific locations remain unspecified.

In May 2023, a senior Pakistani official told Turkey’s Anadolu Agency that Islamabad agreed with the Taliban’s Ministry of Interior to relocate Pakistani Taliban fighters from the border to western Afghanistan.

Anadolu Agency reported that Pakistan would fund this relocation. The Afghanistan Movement Party (Hezb-e-Junbush Milli) spokesperson warned that moving TTP to northern provinces could turn these areas into another Gaza.

Taliban to relocate TTP fighters from border to other provinces of Afghanistan
read more

Over 13,000 Afghan migrants deported from Pakistan in past ten days

Pakistani media have reported that over the past ten days, 13,815 Afghan migrants have been deported from the country and returned to Afghanistan.

Radio Pakistan stated on Saturday, June 22, that since the start of the deportation initiative, a total of 620,981 Afghan citizens, including women and children, have been repatriated to their homeland.

According to reports during the past ten days, approximately 5,014 men, 4,087 women, and 4,714 Afghan children have returned to their country.

Meanwhile, the Bakhtar News Agency, under Taliban control, reported the return of 148 Afghan migrant families from Iran and Pakistan, both forcibly and voluntarily.

According to the  report, they entered the country through border crossings in Nangarhar, Kandahar, Nimroz, and Herat provinces.

This comes as the expulsion of Afghan migrants from Pakistan and Iran has intensified in recent months, with hundreds entering the country daily.

Amnesty International also highlighted on World Refugee Day, June 20th, that Afghan migrants and refugees in Pakistan face numerous challenges, urging the world not to forget their plight.

According to UNDP statistics, approximately 1.6 million Afghan citizens have migrated to neighboring countries in the past two years.

Over 13,000 Afghan migrants deported from Pakistan in past ten days
read more