# Afghanistan Humanitarian Crisis

- Canonical dossier: [Web edition](<https://totallyfine.foundation/crisis/afghanistan-humanitarian-2021/>)

- Markdown edition: [Plain-text edition](<https://totallyfine.foundation/crisis/afghanistan-humanitarian-2021/index.md>)

- Issue: Issue 009

- Rubric: Costed at 45% / Attrition

- Byline: Totally Fine Foundation editorial desk

- Reading time: 10 min

- Last reviewed: 2026-11-04

> Five years into Taliban rule, almost half of Afghanistan is written into a humanitarian plan — and the budget for it shrank faster than the need. Hunger, a hollow economy, mass deportation and a documented architecture of bans on women and girls sit on one map.

## Cover

- Kicker: Field dossier / Asia / humanitarian crisis

- Cover lines: Forty-five per cent of a country, costed — and the appeal cut by 29 per cent. / The economy grows on paper; income per head still falls. / Five million returned in 2025. Most were not asked. / UN bodies and the ICC name it persecution. The page only quotes them.

#### Hero visual provenance

- Caption: Kabul, Afghanistan. Five years into Taliban rule, 21.9 million people — 45 per cent of the population — are written into the 2026 humanitarian plan.

- Alt text: A view of Kabul, Afghanistan, with mountains behind the city.

- Credit: seair21, via Wikimedia Commons

- Rights / license: CC BY 3.0

- Asset: [View image](<https://totallyfine.foundation/visuals/dossiers/afghanistan-humanitarian-2021/hero-afghanistan.webp>)

- Original / provenance: [Open source](<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kabul,_Afghanistan_-_panoramio_(1).jpg>)

## Metrics

### 21.9M — People in humanitarian need (2026)

- Category: humanitarian need

- Caveat: 45% of the population; only about 4% below 2025 — structural, not episodic. The most-cited humanitarian baseline; the contested edge is funding, not scale.

**Source trail:** [UN OCHA — Afghanistan Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan 2026](<https://www.unocha.org/afghanistan>) (`afg-ocha-hnrp-2026`)

#### Visual provenance

- Caption: Almost half a country, written into a plan.

- Alt text: Editorial data surface: the country costed at 45 per cent.

- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation

- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked

- Asset: [View image](<https://totallyfine.foundation/visuals/dossiers/afghanistan-humanitarian-2021/afg-costed-45.svg>)

- Original / provenance: [Open source](<https://www.unocha.org/afghanistan>)

### 17.4M — Acute food insecurity, winter projection (IPC 3+)

- Category: food security

- Caveat: Nov 2025–Mar 2026 projection (36% of population), incl. 4.7M in Emergency. Keep separate from the 13.8M Sep–Oct 2025 snapshot; Phase 4 is a subset, not an addition.

**Source trail:** [IPC — Afghanistan Acute Food Insecurity Analysis, Sept 2025 – Sept 2026](<https://www.ipcinfo.org/ipc-country-analysis/details-map/en/c/1159816/?iso3=AFG>) (`afg-ipc-2025`); [UN OCHA — Afghanistan Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan 2026](<https://www.unocha.org/afghanistan>) (`afg-ocha-hnrp-2026`)

#### Visual provenance

- Caption: Snapshot and projection, kept apart.

- Alt text: Editorial data surface: IPC phases.

- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation

- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked

- Asset: [View image](<https://totallyfine.foundation/visuals/dossiers/afghanistan-humanitarian-2021/afg-ipc-phases.svg>)

- Original / provenance: [Open source](<https://www.ipcinfo.org/ipc-country-analysis/details-map/en/c/1159816/?iso3=AFG>)

### 3.7M+ — Children in acute malnutrition

- Category: health / malnutrition

- Caveat: Aged 6–59 months; a separate caseload from the phase counts, not a subset. Some 200,000 more than the year before.

**Source trail:** [IPC — Afghanistan Acute Food Insecurity Analysis, Sept 2025 – Sept 2026](<https://www.ipcinfo.org/ipc-country-analysis/details-map/en/c/1159816/?iso3=AFG>) (`afg-ipc-2025`)

### ~5M — Returnees in 2025

- Category: displacement / returns

- Caveat: More than 2.6M from Iran and Pakistan; much of it forced, not voluntary (70% of the Jan–Jun 2025 Iran cohort deported). 'Return' merges deportation with voluntary movement.

**Source trail:** [UN OCHA — Afghanistan Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan 2026](<https://www.unocha.org/afghanistan>) (`afg-ocha-hnrp-2026`); [IOM Afghanistan — Returnee and forced-return flows (IOM / DTM)](<https://afghanistan.iom.int/>) (`afg-iom-dtm-2026`)

#### Visual provenance

- Caption: The word 'return' hides the coercion.

- Alt text: Editorial data surface: forced returns.

- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation

- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked

- Asset: [View image](<https://totallyfine.foundation/visuals/dossiers/afghanistan-humanitarian-2021/afg-returns-forced.svg>)

- Original / provenance: [Open source](<https://afghanistan.iom.int/>)

### -5.6% — Per-capita income decline

- Category: economic

- Caveat: About 3.7M returnees outpace ~4.8% GDP growth. A macroeconomic framing, not a human-cost ledger; aggregate growth is not reaching households.

**Source trail:** [World Bank — Afghanistan — Country Overview and Economic Monitor](<https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/afghanistan/overview>) (`afg-worldbank-2026`)

### $1.71B — 2026 appeal requirement

- Category: funding

- Caveat: A 29% cut from 2025; only 80% of those in need (17.5M) are even targeted. A funding story: the need did not fall by a third, the money did.

**Source trail:** [UN OCHA — Afghanistan Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan 2026](<https://www.unocha.org/afghanistan>) (`afg-ocha-hnrp-2026`)

### 638 — Maternal mortality ratio (estimated)

- Category: health / women

- Caveat: Per 100,000, a 2024 estimate — a reversal of the 1,311→521 decline from 2001–2023. Estimated; official data is limited (World Bank / OCHA, via the Special Rapporteur).

**Source trail:** [OHCHR / Special Rapporteur Richard Bennett — Report on women's right to health (A/HRC/61/63)](<https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-afghanistan>) (`afg-ohchr-sr-2026`)

## The country costed at forty-five per cent.

### A country written into a plan

OCHA's 2026 plan reads Afghanistan as a standing emergency rather than a passing one. It puts 21.9 million people — 45 per cent of the population — in humanitarian need next year, a caseload only about 4 per cent below 2025. Against that, the appeal asks US$1.71 billion, which OCHA itself describes as 29 per cent less than the year before. The need did not fall by a third; the money did.

Of those counted in need, 17.5 million are even targeted for support — around 80 per cent — and more than three-quarters of them are women and children. This is the frame for everything that follows: the measurements are authoritative, but they are also appeals, and the gap between what is needed and what is funded is now part of the crisis.

On 30 October 2026, IOM warned that an inter-agency funding gap of USD 8.8 million threatens winter assistance for vulnerable returnee families. The Shelter, Land and Site Coordination Cluster's winter response plan reportedly aims to assist nearly 200,000 people and had reportedly received USD 4 million of the USD 12.8 million required as of 30 October 2026; the cluster is reportedly co-led by IOM and UNHCR. Mihyung Park, IOM's Chief of Mission in Afghanistan, said returning families are arriving in communities where housing and basic services are already under severe strain and called for immediate funding before snow cuts access to remote areas. Many returnee families reportedly lack access to safe shelter, heating, fuel, warm clothing or blankets.

**Source trail:** [UN OCHA — Afghanistan Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan 2026](<https://www.unocha.org/afghanistan>) (`afg-ocha-hnrp-2026`)

#### Visual provenance

- Caption: The money fell faster than the need.

- Alt text: Editorial data surface: the country costed at 45 per cent.

- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation

- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked

- Asset: [View image](<https://totallyfine.foundation/visuals/dossiers/afghanistan-humanitarian-2021/afg-costed-45.svg>)

- Original / provenance: [Open source](<https://www.unocha.org/afghanistan>)

### The border that counts them coming back

The second engine of the crisis is movement. By UN and UNAMA figures, nearly 5.9 million Afghans have returned since September 2023 — an estimated 10 to 12 per cent of the population in just over two years — with 2.9 million arriving in 2025 alone and another 600,000 in the first four months of 2026. OCHA's own tally puts around 5 million returns in 2025, more than 2.6 million of them from Iran and Pakistan.

The word 'return' hides the coercion. Of the 714,572 Afghans who came back from Iran between January and June 2025, IOM recorded 99 per cent as undocumented and 70 per cent as forcibly returned, the surge triggered by Iran's March 2025 deadline. The Pakistan corridor reads differently: of 1,252,876 returns since April 2025, 14 per cent were recorded as deportations. The forced share is not one number — it changes by border and by month, and the categories must not be merged. UNHCR frames the consequence plainly: mass returns are placing pressure on basic services, housing and livelihoods, and increasing the risks of instability and onward movement.

According to IOM, more than 1.3 million Afghans returned from Iran and Pakistan in 2026 as of 30 October 2026. The IOM-led Border Consortium recorded 2.9 million returns to Afghanistan in the calendar year before 2026, according to figures reported on 30 October 2026.

**Source trail:** [IOM Afghanistan — Returnee and forced-return flows (IOM / DTM)](<https://afghanistan.iom.int/>) (`afg-iom-dtm-2026`); [UNHCR — Afghanistan Situation — Operational Data Portal](<https://data.unhcr.org/en/situations/afghanistan>) (`afg-unhcr-2026`); [UN OCHA — Afghanistan Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan 2026](<https://www.unocha.org/afghanistan>) (`afg-ocha-hnrp-2026`)

#### Visual provenance

- Caption: The forced separated from the chosen.

- Alt text: Editorial data surface: forced returns by corridor.

- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation

- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked

- Asset: [View image](<https://totallyfine.foundation/visuals/dossiers/afghanistan-humanitarian-2021/afg-returns-forced.svg>)

- Original / provenance: [Open source](<https://afghanistan.iom.int/>)

### Growth on the page, less on the plate

The World Bank reads the same country as an accountant would. The economy contracted 25 per cent after August 2021 — its last clean cumulative figure, dated to 2023 — and now grows modestly, with real GDP estimated at 4.8 per cent and projected to moderate toward around 4 per cent in 2026. That growth does not reach households. The return of around 3.7 million Afghans has outpaced economic expansion, so income per head fell 5.6 per cent.

Headline inflation eased to 8.0 per cent in May 2026 but price pressures stayed elevated; the current-account deficit widened to 36.1 per cent of GDP in 2025; the banking sector remains fragile. The Bank's last clean poverty headcount, also from 2023, found one in two Afghans poor. Read against OCHA's ledger of need, the message is narrow and stark: aggregate growth is not translating into anything people can eat.

According to the IPC acute malnutrition analysis reported by ReliefWeb on 2026-10-16, 4.04 million Afghan children aged 6–59 months are projected to need acute-malnutrition treatment during the following calendar year. The reported projection is described as the highest number of children needing treatment in the past five years.

The same reported analysis, as cited by ReliefWeb on 2026-10-16, indicates that the number of Afghan provinces classified at critical acute-malnutrition levels is reported to have risen from seven in the prior baseline to ten in the current period and is projected to reach 14 in the next annual projection.

According to the IPC analysis reported by ReliefWeb on 2026-10-16, 1.09 million Afghan children are projected to experience severe acute malnutrition in the next annual projection, a reported 16 percent increase from the preceding period, and nearly 3 million are projected to experience moderate acute malnutrition.

The ReliefWeb report of 2026-10-16 lists seasonal increases in malnutrition, disease outbreaks, inadequate water, sanitation and hygiene conditions, reduced access to nutrition services, and an anticipated funding shortfall as factors in the projection; the report does not establish these as independent causes.

**Source trail:** [World Bank — Afghanistan — Country Overview and Economic Monitor](<https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/afghanistan/overview>) (`afg-worldbank-2026`); [UN OCHA — Afghanistan Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan 2026](<https://www.unocha.org/afghanistan>) (`afg-ocha-hnrp-2026`)

#### Visual provenance

- Caption: Aggregate growth, nothing people can eat.

- Alt text: Editorial data surface: the economy.

- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation

- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked

- Asset: [View image](<https://totallyfine.foundation/visuals/dossiers/afghanistan-humanitarian-2021/afg-economy.svg>)

- Original / provenance: [Open source](<https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/afghanistan/overview>)

### The edicts, kept as a record

UNAMA's human-rights service reads de-facto rule through its own decrees. For the April–June 2025 quarter it records women and girls still barred from education beyond grade six, higher education closed to them since December 2022, dozens of female UN national staff receiving explicit death threats in May, and Vice-and-Virtue inspectors instructing clinics, shops and taxi drivers to refuse women not accompanied by a male guardian. By September, de-facto forces barred Afghan women staff from UN compounds in Kabul, Herat and Mazar-i-Sharif, which UNAMA said put life-saving assistance for hundreds of thousands affected by a recent earthquake at risk.

The same quarter's protection record runs alongside: at least 234 people subjected to judicial corporal punishment, public executions on 11 April, at least seven killings of former security-force members despite a stated amnesty, and 70 casualties from explosive remnants of war — 53 of them children. On 9 June 2026, HRW says, security forces in Herat beat protesters and shot toward the crowds, killing a child; by 7 June at least 30 women had been detained over dress-code noncompliance. The protest in Herat is the crisis at human scale: the same edicts that fill UNAMA's quarterly ledger are enforced, in the end, in a street.

At a 14 August 2026 UN Headquarters press briefing, ahead of the fifth anniversary of the Taliban's return to power, UN Women Special Representative in Afghanistan Susan Ferguson said that Afghanistan's de facto authorities had issued more than 100 decrees stripping women and girls of rights and institutionalizing discrimination against them. UN Women described Afghanistan as the only country in the world where women and girls face far-reaching restrictions on education, work, movement, public participation and legal equality.

In the year preceding the briefing, new decrees and edicts further restricted women's and girls' access to justice and formally removed equality between men and women before the law, according to UN Women.

**Source trail:** [UNAMA — Update on the human rights situation, April–June 2025](<https://unama.unmissions.org/>) (`afg-unama-2025`); [Human Rights Watch — Afghanistan — country reporting](<https://www.hrw.org/asia/afghanistan>) (`afg-hrw-2026`)

#### Visual provenance

- Caption: Enforced, in the end, in a street.

- Alt text: Editorial data surface: the edicts ledger.

- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation

- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked

- Asset: [View image](<https://totallyfine.foundation/visuals/dossiers/afghanistan-humanitarian-2021/afg-edicts-ledger.svg>)

- Original / provenance: [Open source](<https://unama.unmissions.org/>)

### How the rights bodies frame it

The naming is left to the bodies entitled to do it. The UN Special Rapporteur, Richard Bennett, routes his February 2026 report through women's right to health and concludes that the system amounts to crimes against humanity and that the deprivations amount to the crime against humanity of persecution on grounds of gender; he writes that the violations can accurately be described as gender apartheid, a term he notes is not yet a codified crime. The CEDAW Committee, separately, said the system may constitute gender apartheid.

In July 2025 the ICC's Pre-Trial Chamber II issued arrest warrants for the Taliban Supreme Leader and Chief Justice on charges of the crime against humanity of persecution on gender grounds — charges, not convictions. Human Rights Watch states for its own part that the Taliban have committed a widespread and systemic gender-based attack amounting to crimes against humanity, and says so as a characterisation, not a court ruling. The Islamic Emirate, in response to the ICC warrants, has said it established unparalleled justice based on the sacred laws of Islamic Sharia — an own-position statement, recorded as such. This dossier issues no verdict of its own; every legal term belongs to the body that used it.

**Source trail:** [OHCHR / Special Rapporteur Richard Bennett — Report on women's right to health (A/HRC/61/63)](<https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-afghanistan>) (`afg-ohchr-sr-2026`); [Human Rights Watch — Afghanistan — country reporting](<https://www.hrw.org/asia/afghanistan>) (`afg-hrw-2026`)

#### Visual provenance

- Caption: The page only quotes them.

- Alt text: Editorial data surface: the rights framing.

- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation

- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original sources linked

- Asset: [View image](<https://totallyfine.foundation/visuals/dossiers/afghanistan-humanitarian-2021/afg-rights-framing.svg>)

- Original / provenance: [Open source](<https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-afghanistan>)

### WASH response under overlapping shocks

According to the WASH Cluster bulletin for January–June 2026, Afghanistan's WASH response operated amid prolonged drought and water scarcity, localized flooding, earthquakes, Acute Watery Diarrhoea, displacement, and increasing return movements from Iran and Pakistan. The bulletin reports that these overlapping shocks placed additional pressure on limited water resources and essential WASH infrastructure, particularly in underserved and high-risk communities.

According to the WASH Cluster bulletin for January–June 2026, an estimated 15.9 million people were in need and the annual WASH Cluster target was 7.84 million people. The bulletin reports that 25 operational partners reached 908,176 beneficiaries between January and June 2026, without double counting across WASH interventions. According to the bulletin, partners delivered an integrated package of lifesaving and resilience-building WASH assistance, including safe drinking water and gender- and disability-sensitive interventions. According to the bulletin, the Danish Committee for Aid to Afghan Refugees, UNICEF, and the WASH Cluster are its sources.

**Source trail:** [UN OCHA — Afghanistan Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan 2026](<https://www.unocha.org/afghanistan>) (`afg-ocha-hnrp-2026`)

## Actors and positions

### Taliban / Islamic Emirate (de-facto authorities)

- Role: The de-facto rulers of Afghanistan since August 2021.

- Confidence: high

- Position: Present themselves as having restored order and governance under their interpretation of Sharia; frame restrictions on women as religiously grounded and internal; on the ICC warrants said they established unparalleled justice based on the sacred laws of Islamic Sharia.

- Supporter framing: Cast their rule as security and moral order after decades of war.

- Opposing account: UN bodies, the ICC and rights groups document their edicts as the proximate cause of women's exclusion.

- Independent assessment: Independent bodies (ICC, OHCHR, UNAMA) document their decrees as the proximate cause of women's exclusion from education, work and public life. Their statements are recorded here as attributed positions only, never as independent proof.

**Source trail:** [UNAMA — Update on the human rights situation, April–June 2025](<https://unama.unmissions.org/>) (`afg-unama-2025`); [OHCHR / Special Rapporteur Richard Bennett — Report on women's right to health (A/HRC/61/63)](<https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-afghanistan>) (`afg-ohchr-sr-2026`)

### Afghan women, girls and civil society

- Role: The population most directly targeted by the edicts, and the community documenting the impact.

- Confidence: high

- Position: Seek education, work, movement, health care and public presence; document the impact through protest and testimony.

- Supporter framing: UN experts and rights groups centre their exclusion as the core of the crisis.

- Opposing account: The de-facto authorities frame the restrictions as religiously grounded and internal.

- Independent assessment: Strongest evidential alignment with the rights bodies: the ICC, the Special Rapporteur, CEDAW and HRW document a systematic architecture of exclusion. The human core of the crisis, not an equal-sided dispute.

**Source trail:** [UNAMA — Update on the human rights situation, April–June 2025](<https://unama.unmissions.org/>) (`afg-unama-2025`); [OHCHR / Special Rapporteur Richard Bennett — Report on women's right to health (A/HRC/61/63)](<https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-afghanistan>) (`afg-ohchr-sr-2026`); [Human Rights Watch — Afghanistan — country reporting](<https://www.hrw.org/asia/afghanistan>) (`afg-hrw-2026`)

### UN and humanitarian agencies (OCHA, UNAMA, WFP, UNHCR, IOM)

- Role: The evidentiary spine and the responders, planning to reach 17.5 million of 21.9 million in need.

- Confidence: high

- Position: Frame Afghanistan as one of the world's largest crises driven by overlapping shocks, and argue aid must reach people regardless of the authorities.

- Supporter framing: Present their figures as the most-cited evidentiary baseline.

- Opposing account: Taliban-era access constraints limit some monitoring.

- Independent assessment: Their figures are the most-cited evidentiary baseline, though access constraints limit some monitoring; the dossier labels each body's method rather than blending them.

**Source trail:** [UN OCHA — Afghanistan Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan 2026](<https://www.unocha.org/afghanistan>) (`afg-ocha-hnrp-2026`); [UNHCR — Afghanistan Situation — Operational Data Portal](<https://data.unhcr.org/en/situations/afghanistan>) (`afg-unhcr-2026`)

### Returnees and internally displaced people

- Role: Millions expelled or returning from Iran and Pakistan into a country with limited capacity to absorb them.

- Confidence: high

- Position: Seek shelter, services and livelihoods; about 60% of 2025 returnees were women and children.

- Supporter framing: UN experts and Amnesty assess a large majority of the 2025 surge as forced.

- Opposing account: Pakistan and Iran characterise departures as lawful or voluntary.

- Independent assessment: UN experts and Amnesty assess a large majority of the 2.6M+ expelled in 2025 as forced (one UN figure: ~67%); the ambiguity is that UNHCR totals merge deportations with voluntary returns.

**Source trail:** [IOM Afghanistan — Returnee and forced-return flows (IOM / DTM)](<https://afghanistan.iom.int/>) (`afg-iom-dtm-2026`); [UNHCR — Afghanistan Situation — Operational Data Portal](<https://data.unhcr.org/en/situations/afghanistan>) (`afg-unhcr-2026`)

### Donor states and the international community

- Role: Principal funders and holders of frozen central-bank assets.

- Confidence: medium

- Position: Several cut budgets in 2025, and the US suspended remaining aid; hold the war's assets frozen.

- Supporter framing: Cite the difficulty of funding a Taliban-run economy without legitimising it.

- Opposing account: The Taliban point to frozen assets and sanctions as the cause of the crisis.

- Independent assessment: Independent analysis confirms the funding collapse measurably reduced services while noting the crisis is multi-causal — sanctions and the asset freeze are a real but partial cause.

**Source trail:** [World Bank — Afghanistan — Country Overview and Economic Monitor](<https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/afghanistan/overview>) (`afg-worldbank-2026`)

## Claims and evidence

### The crisis is caused only by Western sanctions and the asset freeze.

- Claimant: Taliban / Islamic Emirate framing

- Evidence status: disputed

- Counterclaim: Sanctions and the ~US$9.5bn freeze strangled the banking system, but the crisis is multi-causal.

- Independent assessment: Disputed: drought, ~5M returnees, the August 2025 earthquake, collapsed development aid and the authorities' own restrictions all compound it. 'Only sanctions' overstates a real but partial cause.

**Source trail:** [UN OCHA — Afghanistan Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan 2026](<https://www.unocha.org/afghanistan>) (`afg-ocha-hnrp-2026`); [World Bank — Afghanistan — Country Overview and Economic Monitor](<https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/afghanistan/overview>) (`afg-worldbank-2026`)

### The closure of girls' secondary and higher education is temporary, not a permanent ban.

- Claimant: Taliban / Islamic Emirate framing

- Evidence status: disputed

- Counterclaim: The bans have held over four years with repeated reversals of any reopening signal.

- Independent assessment: Disputed, trending false: UNAMA documents systematic exclusion, and the ICC's July 2025 warrants treat the deprivation of education as persecution.

**Source trail:** [UNAMA — Update on the human rights situation, April–June 2025](<https://unama.unmissions.org/>) (`afg-unama-2025`); [OHCHR / Special Rapporteur Richard Bennett — Report on women's right to health (A/HRC/61/63)](<https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-afghanistan>) (`afg-ohchr-sr-2026`)

#### Visual provenance

- Caption: Four years of exclusion, documented.

- Alt text: Editorial data surface: the edicts ledger.

- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation

- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked

- Asset: [View image](<https://totallyfine.foundation/visuals/dossiers/afghanistan-humanitarian-2021/afg-edicts-ledger.svg>)

- Original / provenance: [Open source](<https://unama.unmissions.org/>)

### The 2025 mass returns from Pakistan and Iran were largely voluntary.

- Claimant: Pakistan and Iran characterisations

- Evidence status: disputed

- Counterclaim: Amnesty and UN experts assess a large majority of the 2.6M+ expelled in 2025 as forced.

- Independent assessment: Disputed, leaning forced: one UN figure puts about 67 per cent forced, and IOM recorded 70 per cent of the early-2025 Iran cohort as deportations. The ambiguity is that UNHCR totals merge deportations with voluntary returns.

**Source trail:** [IOM Afghanistan — Returnee and forced-return flows (IOM / DTM)](<https://afghanistan.iom.int/>) (`afg-iom-dtm-2026`)

#### Visual provenance

- Caption: Leaning forced, by corridor.

- Alt text: Editorial data surface: forced returns.

- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation

- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked

- Asset: [View image](<https://totallyfine.foundation/visuals/dossiers/afghanistan-humanitarian-2021/afg-returns-forced.svg>)

- Original / provenance: [Open source](<https://afghanistan.iom.int/>)

### In 2026, about 21.9 million people — 45 per cent — will need humanitarian assistance.

- Claimant: UN OCHA and partners

- Evidence status: confirmed

- Counterclaim: The figure is corroborated across OCHA, UN News and FEWS NET.

- Independent assessment: Confirmed as the consensus humanitarian baseline; the contested edge is funding, not scale.

**Source trail:** [UN OCHA — Afghanistan Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan 2026](<https://www.unocha.org/afghanistan>) (`afg-ocha-hnrp-2026`)

## Language record

### UN OCHA

- Role: HNRP 2026 launch

- Context: The consensus humanitarian baseline for 2026.

Quotation text is available in the web edition and the cited original source; it is not republished in this machine-readable edition.

**Source:** [UN OCHA — Afghanistan Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan 2026](<https://www.unocha.org/afghanistan>) (`afg-ocha-hnrp-2026`)

### IPC

- Role: Acute Food Insecurity Analysis

- Context: The winter lean-season projection, November 2025 to March 2026.

Quotation text is available in the web edition and the cited original source; it is not republished in this machine-readable edition.

**Source:** [IPC — Afghanistan Acute Food Insecurity Analysis, Sept 2025 – Sept 2026](<https://www.ipcinfo.org/ipc-country-analysis/details-map/en/c/1159816/?iso3=AFG>) (`afg-ipc-2025`)

### IOM

- Role: On the early-2025 Iran cohort

- Context: Of the 714,572 who returned from Iran between January and June 2025.

Quotation text is available in the web edition and the cited original source; it is not republished in this machine-readable edition.

**Source:** [IOM Afghanistan — Returnee and forced-return flows (IOM / DTM)](<https://afghanistan.iom.int/>) (`afg-iom-dtm-2026`)

### UNAMA

- Role: On barring female UN staff

- Context: On the September 2025 bar on Afghan women at UN compounds.

Quotation text is available in the web edition and the cited original source; it is not republished in this machine-readable edition.

**Source:** [UNAMA — Update on the human rights situation, April–June 2025](<https://unama.unmissions.org/>) (`afg-unama-2025`)

### Richard Bennett

- Role: UN Special Rapporteur on Afghanistan

- Context: February 2026 report on women's right to health; his conclusion, attributed.

Quotation text is available in the web edition and the cited original source; it is not republished in this machine-readable edition.

**Source:** [OHCHR / Special Rapporteur Richard Bennett — Report on women's right to health (A/HRC/61/63)](<https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-afghanistan>) (`afg-ohchr-sr-2026`)

### International Criminal Court

- Role: Pre-Trial Chamber II, via OHCHR

- Context: July 2025 warrants for the Taliban Supreme Leader and Chief Justice — charges, not convictions.

Quotation text is available in the web edition and the cited original source; it is not republished in this machine-readable edition.

**Source:** [OHCHR / Special Rapporteur Richard Bennett — Report on women's right to health (A/HRC/61/63)](<https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-afghanistan>) (`afg-ohchr-sr-2026`)

## Timeline

### 2021-08-15 — Taliban captures Kabul; government collapses

- Event type: conflict\_escalation

- Confidence: high

Taliban forces captured Kabul on August 15, 2021, following the rapid collapse of the Afghan government and military. The US completed its withdrawal by August 30. Immediate humanitarian crisis followed as economy froze and many aid organizations paused operations.

**Source trail:** [UNOCHA — Afghanistan Crisis — UNOCHA](<https://www.unocha.org/afghanistan>) (`src-afg-ocha`)

### 2022-12-24 — Taliban bans women from working for NGOs — major humanitarian impact

- Event type: humanitarian\_access

- Confidence: high

The Taliban issued a decree banning Afghan women from working for domestic and international NGOs, severely disrupting the delivery of humanitarian aid. The UN and major NGOs suspended operations in protest before partially resuming with male-only staff.

**Source trail:** [UNOCHA — Afghanistan Crisis — UNOCHA](<https://www.unocha.org/afghanistan>) (`src-afg-ocha`); [ReliefWeb — Afghanistan Crisis Overview — ReliefWeb](<https://reliefweb.int/country/afg>) (`src-afg-reliefweb`)

### 2026-04-28 — 23 million in acute food insecurity; Taliban bans on female workers persist

- Event type: displacement\_update

- Confidence: high

OCHA's April 2026 situation report confirmed 23 million Afghans face acute food insecurity (IPC phases 3-5). Taliban restrictions on female aid workers continue to hamper health, nutrition, and WASH programs, particularly in rural areas.

**Source trail:** [UNOCHA — Afghanistan Crisis — UNOCHA](<https://www.unocha.org/afghanistan>) (`src-afg-ocha`); [WFP — Afghanistan — WFP Situation Report](<https://www.wfp.org/countries/afghanistan>) (`src-afg-wfp`)

### 2026-08-14 — UN Women briefing ahead of fifth anniversary of Taliban's return to power

- Event type: international\_response

- Confidence: medium

Susan Ferguson, UN Women Special Representative in Afghanistan, told a UN Headquarters press briefing on 14 August 2026, ahead of the fifth anniversary of the Taliban's return to power, that the de facto authorities had issued more than 100 decrees stripping women and girls of rights, and that new decrees in the preceding year had restricted access to justice and removed legal equality between men and women, according to UN Women.

**Source trail:** [ReliefWeb (OCHA) — ReliefWeb reports ingested by editorial pipeline (Aug 2026)](<https://reliefweb.int/updates>) (`src-afghanistan--editorial-2026-08`)

### 2026-06-30 — OCHA reports 30 June 2026 as end of coverage period for Afghanistan response overview

- Event type: humanitarian\_access

- Confidence: medium

According to OCHA, the response overview for Afghanistan's 2026 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan covers 1 January–30 June 2026 and is presented as an attached infographic.

**Source trail:** [ReliefWeb (OCHA) — ReliefWeb reports ingested by editorial pipeline (Aug 2026)](<https://reliefweb.int/updates>) (`src-afghanistan--editorial-2026-08`)

### 2026-08-03 — OCHA reports nearly 5,000 people affected by disasters across 10 Afghan provinces between 20 July and 3 August 2026

- Event type: disaster\_update

- Confidence: medium

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, nearly 5,000 people were affected by disasters across Ghazni, Kabul, Kapisa, Laghman, Logar, Nuristan, Paktya, Paktika, Panjsher and Parwan provinces between 20 July and 3 August 2026.

**Source trail:** [ReliefWeb (OCHA) — ReliefWeb reports ingested by editorial pipeline (Aug 2026)](<https://reliefweb.int/updates>) (`src-afghanistan--editorial-2026-08`)

### 2026-06-30 — WASH Cluster reports 908,176 beneficiaries reached in H1 2026

- Event type: humanitarian\_access

- Confidence: medium

According to the WASH Cluster bulletin, 25 operational partners reached 908,176 beneficiaries between January and June 2026, without double counting across WASH interventions.

**Source trail:** [ReliefWeb (OCHA) — ReliefWeb reports ingested by editorial pipeline (Aug 2026)](<https://reliefweb.int/updates>) (`src-afghanistan--editorial-2026-08`)

### 2026-10-16 — ReliefWeb reports IPC acute malnutrition projections for Afghanistan

- Event type: disaster\_update

- Confidence: medium

ReliefWeb reported on 2026-10-16 that the IPC acute malnutrition analysis projects 4.04 million Afghan children aged 6–59 months to need acute-malnutrition treatment in the following calendar year; the report also indicates provinces at critical level rose from seven to ten and are projected to reach 14.

**Source trail:** [ReliefWeb (OCHA) — ReliefWeb reports ingested by editorial pipeline (2026-10)](<https://reliefweb.int/updates>) (`src-afghanistan--editorial-2026-10`)

### 2026-10-30 — IOM Afghanistan Emergency Border Response report for 11–24 October 2026 reportedly published on ReliefWeb

- Event type: international\_response

- Confidence: low

An IOM Afghanistan Emergency Border Response report for 11–24 October 2026 was reportedly published on ReliefWeb on 30 October 2026; it reportedly covers Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan. Substantive figures appear to be contained in an attached infographic not included in available evidence.

**Source trail:** [ReliefWeb (OCHA) — ReliefWeb reports ingested by editorial pipeline (2026-10)](<https://reliefweb.int/updates>) (`src-afghanistan--editorial-2026-10`)

### 2026-10-30 — IOM reports more than 1.3 million Afghan returns in 2026

- Event type: displacement\_update

- Confidence: medium

The International Organization for Migration reported more than 1.3 million Afghans returned from Iran and Pakistan in 2026, as of 30 October 2026.

**Source trail:** [ReliefWeb (OCHA) — ReliefWeb reports ingested by editorial pipeline (2026-11)](<https://reliefweb.int/updates>) (`src-afghanistan--editorial-2026-11`)

### 2026-10-30 — IOM warns of $8.8m winter assistance funding gap

- Event type: humanitarian\_access

- Confidence: medium

IOM warned that an inter-agency funding gap of USD 8.8 million threatens winter assistance for vulnerable returnee families. The Shelter, Land and Site Coordination Cluster's winter response plan reportedly aims to assist nearly 200,000 people and had reportedly received USD 4 million of the USD 12.8 million required as of 30 October 2026.

**Source trail:** [ReliefWeb (OCHA) — ReliefWeb reports ingested by editorial pipeline (2026-11)](<https://reliefweb.int/updates>) (`src-afghanistan--editorial-2026-11`)

### 2026-07-29 — UNHCR conducts participatory assessment on Afghans remaining in Pakistan

- Event type: international\_response

- Confidence: medium

According to UNHCR, the ad hoc Participatory Assessment examined how Pakistan's Illegal Foreigners' Repatriation Plan and a deteriorating protection environment have affected Afghan refugees across age, gender and diversity groups; it covered community engagement and women's empowerment, well-being and basic needs, and return and sustainable reintegration, with particular attention to gender, ethnic and religious minorities, persons with disabilities, women at risk, outreach volunteers and students. According to UNHCR, successive phases of IFRP implementation have made all Afghans in Pakistan who do not hold visas 'illegal foreigners'.

**Source trail:** [ReliefWeb (OCHA) — ReliefWeb reports ingested by editorial pipeline (2026-11)](<https://reliefweb.int/updates>) (`src-afghanistan--editorial-2026-11`)

### 2026-09-30 — UNICEF reports 15.9 million people in Afghanistan facing Crisis or worse food insecurity

- Event type: disaster\_update

- Confidence: medium

UNICEF's Afghanistan Humanitarian Situation Report No. 9, covering 1–30 September 2026 and published on ReliefWeb on 4 November 2026, says food insecurity and acute malnutrition continued to worsen, with 15.9 million people facing Crisis or worse food insecurity (IPC Phase 3+), including 3.4 million in Emergency (IPC Phase 4). The IPC analysis date is not stated.

**Source trail:** [ReliefWeb (OCHA) — ReliefWeb reports ingested by editorial pipeline (2026-11)](<https://reliefweb.int/updates>) (`src-afghanistan--editorial-2026-11`)

### 2026-09-30 — UNICEF reports child wasting at highest recorded levels for August–October

- Event type: disaster\_update

- Confidence: medium

According to UNICEF's September 2026 Afghanistan situation report, child wasting in Afghanistan reached its highest recorded levels for the August–October period.

**Source trail:** [ReliefWeb (OCHA) — ReliefWeb reports ingested by editorial pipeline (2026-11)](<https://reliefweb.int/updates>) (`src-afghanistan--editorial-2026-11`)

### 2026-09-30 — UNICEF details child protection services for displaced and returning families

- Event type: international\_response

- Confidence: medium

According to UNICEF's Afghanistan Humanitarian Situation Report No. 9 covering 1–30 September 2026, child protection services included psychosocial support, case management, family tracing and reunification, and gender-based violence prevention and response, prioritising families affected by emergencies, displacement and returns.

**Source trail:** [ReliefWeb (OCHA) — ReliefWeb reports ingested by editorial pipeline (2026-11)](<https://reliefweb.int/updates>) (`src-afghanistan--editorial-2026-11`)

## Visual essay

### Gallery image 01

#### Visual provenance

- Caption: The mountains behind Kabul. Nearly 5.9 million Afghans have returned since 2023 into a country whose economy grows on paper but delivers less on every plate.

- Alt text: Snow-capped mountains rising behind Kabul, Afghanistan.

- Credit: James Dennes

- Rights / license: CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

- Asset: [View image](<https://totallyfine.foundation/visuals/dossiers/afghanistan-humanitarian-2021/gallery-kabul-mountains.webp>)

- Original / provenance: [Open source](<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kabul_mountains.jpg>)

### Gallery image 02

#### Visual provenance

- Caption: The word 'return' hides the coercion: of 714,572 who came back from Iran in early 2025, IOM recorded 70 per cent as forcibly returned.

- Alt text: Editorial data surface: nearly 5.9 million Afghans returned since 2023, much of it forced.

- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation

- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked

- Asset: [View image](<https://totallyfine.foundation/visuals/dossiers/afghanistan-humanitarian-2021/afg-returns-forced.svg>)

- Original / provenance: [Open source](<https://afghanistan.iom.int/>)

## Linked visual references

### Report on women's right to health (A/HRC/61/63)

- Photographer: Richard Bennett, UN Special Rapporteur

- Publisher: OHCHR

- Recognition: UN Human Rights Council mandate

- Why it matters: The UN report that routes the whole crisis through a single organ — women's right to health — and reaches the legal conclusions this dossier only quotes.

- Original: [Open reference](<https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-afghanistan>)

#### How the rights bodies frame it.

The Special Rapporteur finds Afghan women appearing not as a cause but as a measurement — and concludes the system amounts to crimes against humanity. The legal weight is his, carefully attributed, not the page's.

The reference matters because the naming of the gravest terms — 'persecution on gender grounds,' 'gender apartheid' — is left to the bodies entitled to make it: the Special Rapporteur, the CEDAW Committee, and the ICC's July 2025 warrants.

This dossier records them as attributed findings, not verdicts of its own. The report keeps the humanitarian structure intact alongside the rights one, and both are held to their sources.

## Media desk

### Afghanistan — provinces

- Publisher: Wikimedia Commons

- Creator: Wikimedia Commons contributors

- Date: Maintained file

- Media type: map

- Rights mode: direct\_image

- Placement: Orientation map / geography

- Caption: The geography holds the compounding shocks at once: hunger, a contracting economy, mass returns across the Iran and Pakistan borders, and a documented architecture of edicts.

- Why it matters: A rights-safe locator; geography context for the caseload and the return corridors, not a claim about control.

The map belongs early because the crisis is national and structural — 45 per cent of the population — rather than confined to a front. It orients the ledgers that follow.

- Original: [Open media record](<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Afghanistan_Administrative_Divisions.jpg>)

#### Visual provenance

- Caption: Afghanistan's provinces: the humanitarian caseload, the drought-hit rainfed regions, and the eastern provinces struck by the August 2025 earthquake all map onto the same territory.

- Alt text: Map of Afghanistan showing its provinces.

- Credit: US Central Intelligence Agency

- Rights / license: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

- Asset: [View image](<https://totallyfine.foundation/visuals/dossiers/afghanistan-humanitarian-2021/afghanistan-map.webp>)

- Original / provenance: [Open source](<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Afghanistan_Administrative_Divisions.jpg>)

### The edicts, kept as a record

- Publisher: UNAMA

- Creator: Totally Fine Foundation

- Date: 2025

- Media type: infographic

- Rights mode: linked\_reference\_only

- Placement: Rights data surface

- Caption: The architecture of restriction, kept as a record: the edicts that fill UNAMA's quarterly ledger are enforced, in the end, in a street — as at the Herat protest of 9 June 2026.

- Why it matters: UNAMA documents the country through its own decrees; the surface holds the procedural register and the protection findings as separate categories.

The surface exists because the restrictions are not abstract policy: they reach directly into aid delivery, into clinics and UN compounds, and into the bodies the de-facto state polices.

- Original: [Open media record](<https://unama.unmissions.org/>)

#### Visual provenance

- Caption: UNAMA reads de-facto rule through its own decrees: girls barred beyond grade six, university closed since December 2022, and a protection record of 234 corporal punishments and public executions in a single quarter.

- Alt text: Editorial data surface: UNAMA's quarterly record of edicts and protection findings.

- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation

- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked

- Asset: [View image](<https://totallyfine.foundation/visuals/dossiers/afghanistan-humanitarian-2021/afg-edicts-ledger.svg>)

- Original / provenance: [Open source](<https://unama.unmissions.org/>)

## Source readings

### A country written into a plan.

- Registry ID: `afg-ocha-hnrp-2026`

- Publisher: UN OCHA

- Source type: humanitarian

- Published: 2025-12-30

- Registry title: Afghanistan Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan 2026

- Editorial note: A country read as a permanent emergency — and an appeal cut faster than the need.

- Original: [Open source](<https://www.unocha.org/afghanistan>)

OCHA's 2026 plan reads Afghanistan as a standing emergency rather than a passing one — and the money fell faster than the need.

It puts 21.9 million people — 45 per cent of the population — in humanitarian need in 2026, a caseload only about 4 per cent below 2025. Against that, the appeal asks US$1.71 billion, which OCHA itself describes as 29 per cent less than the year before. The need did not fall by a third; the money did.

Of those counted in need, 17.5 million are targeted for support — around 80 per cent — and more than three-quarters of them are women and children. The measurements are authoritative, but they are also appeals, and the gap between what is needed and what is funded is now part of the crisis.

#### Takeaways

- Need is structural, not episodic — only about 4 per cent below 2025.

- The appeal contracted faster than the crisis (a 29 per cent cut); 80 per cent of those in need are targeted.

- Displacement and drought are defining 2026 drivers; keep the winter IPC projection separate from the current snapshot.

#### Visual provenance

- Caption: The need is structural; the appeal contracted faster.

- Alt text: Editorial data surface: 21.9 million in need, 17.5 million targeted, US$1.71 billion.

- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation

- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked

- Asset: [View image](<https://totallyfine.foundation/visuals/dossiers/afghanistan-humanitarian-2021/afg-costed-45.svg>)

- Original / provenance: [Open source](<https://www.unocha.org/afghanistan>)

### Hunger, counted in phases.

- Registry ID: `afg-ipc-2025`

- Publisher: IPC

- Source type: humanitarian

- Published: 2025-12-16

- Registry title: Afghanistan Acute Food Insecurity Analysis, Sept 2025 – Sept 2026

- Editorial note: Hunger counted in phases, with snapshot and projection held apart.

- Original: [Open source](<https://www.ipcinfo.org/ipc-country-analysis/details-map/en/c/1159816/?iso3=AFG>)

The IPC classifies Afghan hunger by severity rather than headline — a clear seasonal arc, snapshot to projection.

Its September–October 2025 snapshot put 13.8 million people — 28 per cent of the population — in Crisis or worse, including 2.9 million in Emergency. The projection for the winter lean season, November 2025 to March 2026, is sharper: 17.4 million in Phase 3+, including 4.7 million in Emergency — an increase of 2.6 million food-insecure people on the previous year. A modelled spring harvest is expected to ease the figure back toward 13.8 million by mid-2026, but that is a forecast about the season, not the cause.

Underneath the arithmetic sits drought — the failure of nearly 80 per cent of rainfed wheat crops in several regions — alongside a contracting economy and mass returns. A companion analysis counts more than 3.7 million children in acute malnutrition, 200,000 more than the year before; it is a distinct caseload, not a subset of the phase counts.

#### Takeaways

- A food-security classification, not a casualty count; Phase 4 (Emergency) is a subset of Phase 3+, never added.

- Snapshot (13.8M, Sep–Oct 2025) and projection (17.4M, winter) are different objects — keep them apart.

- The malnutrition caseload (3.7M children) is a distinct metric, not folded into the phase counts.

#### Visual provenance

- Caption: Hunger in phases: 13.8 million in Crisis or worse (Sep–Oct 2025 snapshot, 2.9 million in Emergency) rising to a projected 17.4 million through the winter (4.7 million in Emergency), easing back on a modelled spring harvest.

- Alt text: Editorial data surface: 13.8 million in IPC Phase 3+ rising to a projected 17.4 million for the winter lean season.

- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation

- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked

- Asset: [View image](<https://totallyfine.foundation/visuals/dossiers/afghanistan-humanitarian-2021/afg-ipc-phases.svg>)

- Original / provenance: [Open source](<https://www.ipcinfo.org/ipc-country-analysis/details-map/en/c/1159816/?iso3=AFG>)

### The border that counts them coming back.

- Registry ID: `afg-iom-dtm-2026`

- Publisher: IOM Afghanistan

- Source type: humanitarian

- Published: 2026-05-19

- Registry title: Returnee and forced-return flows (IOM / DTM)

- Editorial note: The exodus counted as movement — the forced separated from the chosen, by corridor.

- Original: [Open source](<https://afghanistan.iom.int/>)

IOM counts the exodus as movement, not metaphor — and separates the forced from the chosen, corridor by corridor.

Nearly 5.9 million Afghans have returned since September 2023 — an estimated 10 to 12 per cent of the population in just over two years — with 2.9 million arriving in 2025 alone and another 600,000 by April 2026. The word 'return' hides the coercion. Of the 714,572 Afghans who came back from Iran between January and June 2025, IOM recorded 99 per cent as undocumented and 70 per cent as forcibly returned, the surge triggered by Iran's March 2025 deadline.

The Pakistan corridor reads differently: of 1,252,876 returns since April 2025, 14 per cent were recorded as deportations, with fear of arrest cited as the primary driver. The forced share is not one number — it changes by border and by month, and the categories must not be merged.

#### Takeaways

- Scale is roughly 10–12 per cent of the population; forced-vs-voluntary differs sharply by corridor.

- The DTM Pakistan series is a crossing-point count, not a global total.

- 'Return' merges deportation with voluntary movement — keep the categories apart and dated.

#### Visual provenance

- Caption: The forced separated from the chosen: nearly 5.9 million Afghans returned since September 2023, but the coercion changes by corridor — 70 per cent of early-2025 Iran returns were deportations, against 14 per cent of the Pakistan cohort.

- Alt text: Editorial data surface: nearly 5.9 million returns since 2023; Iran 70 per cent forced, Pakistan 14 per cent deported.

- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation

- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked

- Asset: [View image](<https://totallyfine.foundation/visuals/dossiers/afghanistan-humanitarian-2021/afg-returns-forced.svg>)

- Original / provenance: [Open source](<https://afghanistan.iom.int/>)

### A ledger of people pushed back.

- Registry ID: `afg-unhcr-2026`

- Publisher: UNHCR

- Source type: humanitarian

- Published: 2026-06-13

- Registry title: Afghanistan Situation — Operational Data Portal

- Editorial note: A border emptied faster than housing and services can answer.

- Original: [Open source](<https://data.unhcr.org/en/situations/afghanistan>)

UNHCR keeps the count as a ledger of people in the region and people pushed back across the borders — and separates forced removals from voluntary returns.

Behind 3.08 million Afghans still hosted in neighbouring countries sits a border being emptied faster than housing, services or livelihoods can answer. UNHCR frames the consequence plainly: mass returns are placing pressure on basic services, housing and livelihoods, and increasing the risks of instability and onward movement.

The quiet, load-bearing distinction the portal keeps is between deportations and voluntary returns. Because a year-label conflict on the returns and deportations totals could not be resolved this cycle, those exact totals are held out of the prose here, and the framing is attributed to UNHCR.

#### Takeaways

- The portal keeps deportations distinct from total returns — never merge them.

- Figures are rolling; an unresolved year-label on some totals means those are held, not stated.

- Attribute the strain-and-onward-movement framing to UNHCR.

#### Visual provenance

- Caption: A border emptied faster than it can be absorbed: behind 3.08 million Afghans still hosted in neighbouring countries, UNHCR warns mass returns are straining basic services, housing and livelihoods and raising onward-movement risk.

- Alt text: Editorial data surface: 3.08 million Afghans still hosted regionally as a border is emptied faster than services can answer.

- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation

- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked

- Asset: [View image](<https://totallyfine.foundation/visuals/dossiers/afghanistan-humanitarian-2021/afg-border-pressure.svg>)

- Original / provenance: [Open source](<https://data.unhcr.org/en/situations/afghanistan>)

### The edicts, kept as a record.

- Registry ID: `afg-unama-2025`

- Publisher: UNAMA

- Source type: human\_rights

- Published: 2025-07-01

- Registry title: Update on the human rights situation, April–June 2025

- Editorial note: The country documented through its own decrees — and a separate protection record.

- Original: [Open source](<https://unama.unmissions.org/>)

UNAMA's human-rights service reads de-facto rule through its own decrees — and keeps a protection ledger alongside.

For the April–June 2025 quarter it records women and girls still barred from education beyond grade six, higher education closed to them since December 2022, dozens of female UN national staff receiving explicit death threats in May, and Vice-and-Virtue inspectors instructing clinics, shops and taxi drivers to refuse women not accompanied by a male guardian. By September, de-facto forces barred Afghan women staff from UN compounds in Kabul, Herat and Mazar-i-Sharif, which UNAMA said put life-saving assistance for hundreds of thousands affected by a recent earthquake at risk.

The same quarter's protection record runs alongside: at least 234 people subjected to judicial corporal punishment (185 men, 48 women, one boy), public executions on 11 April, at least seven killings of former security-force members despite a stated amnesty, and 70 casualties from explosive remnants of war — 53 of them children.

#### Takeaways

- The education ban is ongoing into a fourth year; restrictions reach directly into aid delivery.

- Civilian-protection findings are kept as separate categories from the edicts.

- A primary UN monitoring source — its findings are attributed, not Taliban claims.

#### Visual provenance

- Caption: De-facto rule read through its decrees — and a protection record kept alongside.

- Alt text: Editorial data surface: UNAMA's quarterly ledger of edicts and protection findings.

- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation

- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked

- Asset: [View image](<https://totallyfine.foundation/visuals/dossiers/afghanistan-humanitarian-2021/afg-edicts-ledger.svg>)

- Original / provenance: [Open source](<https://unama.unmissions.org/>)

### How the rights bodies frame it.

- Registry ID: `afg-ohchr-sr-2026`

- Publisher: OHCHR / Special Rapporteur Richard Bennett

- Source type: human\_rights

- Published: 2026-02-23

- Registry title: Report on women's right to health (A/HRC/61/63)

- Editorial note: The gravest legal terms — carefully attributed to the bodies entitled to make them.

- Original: [Open source](<https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-afghanistan>)

The naming of the gravest terms is left to the bodies entitled to do it — and this dossier only quotes them.

The Special Rapporteur, Richard Bennett, routes his February 2026 report through women's right to health and concludes that the system amounts to crimes against humanity and that the deprivations amount to the crime against humanity of persecution on grounds of gender; he writes that the violations can accurately be described as gender apartheid, a term he notes is not yet a codified crime. The CEDAW Committee, separately, said the system may constitute gender apartheid.

In July 2025 the ICC's Pre-Trial Chamber II issued arrest warrants for the Taliban Supreme Leader and Chief Justice on charges of the crime against humanity of persecution on gender grounds — charges, not convictions. Human Rights Watch states for its own part that the Taliban have committed a widespread and systemic gender-based attack amounting to crimes against humanity — a characterisation, not a court ruling. The Islamic Emirate has said it established unparalleled justice based on the sacred laws of Islamic Sharia.

#### Takeaways

- The legal terms are the Special Rapporteur's, CEDAW's, the ICC's and HRW's — quote and attribute, never adopt.

- The ICC warrants are charges, not convictions; the Emirate's response is recorded as own-position.

- The report routes the whole crisis through women's right to health — including maternal mortality climbing back toward an estimated 638 per 100,000.

#### Visual provenance

- Caption: The naming, left to the bodies entitled to do it: the Special Rapporteur finds the system 'amounts to crimes against humanity' and can be described as 'gender apartheid'; the ICC issued warrants for the Supreme Leader and Chief Justice in July 2025.

- Alt text: Editorial data surface: 'crimes against humanity', 'gender apartheid', and ICC arrest warrants — all attributed.

- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation

- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original sources linked

- Asset: [View image](<https://totallyfine.foundation/visuals/dossiers/afghanistan-humanitarian-2021/afg-rights-framing.svg>)

- Original / provenance: [Open source](<https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-afghanistan>)

### Growth on the page, less on the plate.

- Registry ID: `afg-worldbank-2026`

- Publisher: World Bank

- Source type: research

- Published: 2026-04-26

- Registry title: Afghanistan — Country Overview and Economic Monitor

- Editorial note: Growth on the page, less on every plate — a macro framing, not a human-cost ledger.

- Original: [Open source](<https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/afghanistan/overview>)

The World Bank reads the same country as an accountant would — an economy that grows modestly yet delivers nothing to the people inside it.

The economy contracted 25 per cent after August 2021 — its last clean cumulative figure, dated to 2023 — and now grows modestly, with real GDP estimated at 4.8 per cent and projected to moderate toward around 4 per cent in 2026. That growth does not reach households: the return of around 3.7 million Afghans has outpaced economic expansion, so income per head fell 5.6 per cent.

Headline inflation eased to 8.0 per cent in May 2026 but price pressures stayed elevated; the current-account deficit widened to 36.1 per cent of GDP in 2025; the banking sector remains fragile. The Bank's last clean poverty headcount, from 2023, found one in two Afghans poor. Read against OCHA's ledger of need, the message is narrow and stark: aggregate growth is not translating into anything people can eat.

#### Takeaways

- A macroeconomic framing, not a human-cost ledger; the 25 per cent contraction is a 2023-vintage figure.

- Modest growth is outpaced by population growth, so income per head falls.

- Rights findings are attributed to UNAMA/OHCHR, not to the Bank.

#### Visual provenance

- Caption: Growth on the page, less on the plate: an economy that contracted 25 per cent after August 2021 now grows about 4.8 per cent — but with 3.7 million returnees swelling the population, income per head fell 5.6 per cent.

- Alt text: Editorial data surface: the economy grew about 4.8 per cent while income per head fell 5.6 per cent.

- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation

- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked

- Asset: [View image](<https://totallyfine.foundation/visuals/dossiers/afghanistan-humanitarian-2021/afg-economy.svg>)

- Original / provenance: [Open source](<https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/afghanistan/overview>)

### What the body count looks like up close.

- Registry ID: `afg-hrw-2026`

- Publisher: Human Rights Watch

- Source type: human\_rights

- Published: 2026-06-11

- Registry title: Afghanistan — country reporting

- Editorial note: The crisis at human scale — the same edicts, enforced in a street.

- Original: [Open source](<https://www.hrw.org/asia/afghanistan>)

Human Rights Watch reads the de-facto state through the bodies it polices — and the crisis at human scale is a street in Herat.

On 9 June 2026, HRW says, security forces in Herat beat protesters and shot toward the crowds, killing a child, injuring others and detaining an unknown number; the UN, as cited by HRW, stated that an 11-year-old boy was fatally shot. By 7 June, again per the UN, at least 30 women had been detained for alleged noncompliance with dress requirements.

HRW reports more than 22 million people at risk of food insecurity, with women and girls disproportionately affected — a need-and-risk projection, not a count of people currently starving — and frames the returns from Pakistan and Iran, more than six million since September 2023, as largely forced. Its verdict — a systemic gender-based attack amounting to crimes against humanity — is advocacy, and it says so.

#### Takeaways

- HRW documents the Herat protest as excessive force, with killed, injured and detained kept as separate categories.

- Its 'crimes against humanity' verdict is a characterisation, not a court ruling; pair its figures with UN corroboration.

- The 22 million is a need-and-risk projection, not a count of people currently starving.

#### Visual provenance

- Caption: The crisis at human scale: on 9 June 2026 HRW says security forces beat protesters and shot toward crowds in Herat, killing a child; by 7 June at least 30 women had been detained for alleged dress-code 'noncompliance'.

- Alt text: Editorial data surface: the 9 June 2026 Herat protest and 30 women detained over dress-code 'noncompliance'.

- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation

- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked

- Asset: [View image](<https://totallyfine.foundation/visuals/dossiers/afghanistan-humanitarian-2021/afg-herat.svg>)

- Original / provenance: [Open source](<https://www.hrw.org/asia/afghanistan>)

## Analysis shelf

### Afghanistan Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan 2026

- Publisher: UN OCHA

- Type: report

- Why it matters: The consensus baseline — 21.9 million in need — and the funding gap now part of the crisis.

- Position note: Humanitarian planning source; authoritative but appeal-driven.

- Original: [Open source](<https://www.unocha.org/afghanistan>)

#### Visual provenance

- Caption: Almost half a country, costed.

- Alt text: Editorial data surface: costed at 45 per cent.

- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation

- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked

- Asset: [View image](<https://totallyfine.foundation/visuals/dossiers/afghanistan-humanitarian-2021/afg-costed-45.svg>)

- Original / provenance: [Open source](<https://www.unocha.org/afghanistan>)

### Report on women's right to health (A/HRC/61/63)

- Publisher: OHCHR / Special Rapporteur

- Type: report

- Why it matters: The UN report that reaches the legal conclusions — crimes against humanity, gender apartheid — this dossier only quotes.

- Position note: UN human-rights body; the legal terms are the Rapporteur's, attributed.

- Original: [Open source](<https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-afghanistan>)

#### Visual provenance

- Caption: The naming, left to the bodies entitled to it.

- Alt text: Editorial data surface: the rights framing.

- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation

- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original sources linked

- Asset: [View image](<https://totallyfine.foundation/visuals/dossiers/afghanistan-humanitarian-2021/afg-rights-framing.svg>)

- Original / provenance: [Open source](<https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-afghanistan>)

### Afghanistan Economic Monitor

- Publisher: World Bank

- Type: report

- Why it matters: The macro reading — growth on the page, income per head falling — against OCHA's ledger of need.

- Position note: Institutional source; a macroeconomic framing, not a human-cost ledger.

- Original: [Open source](<https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/afghanistan/overview>)

#### Visual provenance

- Caption: Growth on the page, less on the plate.

- Alt text: Editorial data surface: the economy.

- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation

- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked

- Asset: [View image](<https://totallyfine.foundation/visuals/dossiers/afghanistan-humanitarian-2021/afg-economy.svg>)

- Original / provenance: [Open source](<https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/afghanistan/overview>)

### Afghanistan — country reporting

- Publisher: Human Rights Watch

- Type: investigation

- Why it matters: The crisis at human scale — the Herat protest, the detentions — with the humanitarian frame held alongside the rights one.

- Position note: Advocacy monitor; verdicts are characterisations, paired with UN corroboration.

- Original: [Open source](<https://www.hrw.org/asia/afghanistan>)

#### Visual provenance

- Caption: The crisis, enforced in a street.

- Alt text: Editorial data surface: Herat.

- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation

- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked

- Asset: [View image](<https://totallyfine.foundation/visuals/dossiers/afghanistan-humanitarian-2021/afg-herat.svg>)

- Original / provenance: [Open source](<https://www.hrw.org/asia/afghanistan>)

## Media shelf

### Afghanistan — provinces map

- Publisher: Wikimedia Commons

- Type: media

- Why it matters: A rights-safe locator for a national, structural crisis — the caseload and the return corridors on one map.

- Position note: Reusable public-domain asset; geography, not a claim about control.

- Original: [Open source](<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Afghanistan_Administrative_Divisions.jpg>)

#### Visual provenance

- Caption: One territory, several compounding shocks.

- Alt text: Map of Afghanistan showing its provinces.

- Credit: US Central Intelligence Agency

- Rights / license: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

- Asset: [View image](<https://totallyfine.foundation/visuals/dossiers/afghanistan-humanitarian-2021/afghanistan-map.webp>)

- Original / provenance: [Open source](<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Afghanistan_Administrative_Divisions.jpg>)

### Returnee and forced-return flows (IOM / DTM)

- Publisher: IOM Afghanistan

- Type: dataset

- Why it matters: The movement ledger — the forced separated from the chosen, corridor by corridor.

- Position note: UN agency data; the DTM keeps deportations distinct from voluntary returns.

- Original: [Open source](<https://afghanistan.iom.int/>)

#### Visual provenance

- Caption: A border emptied faster than it can be absorbed.

- Alt text: Editorial data surface: border pressure.

- Credit: Totally Fine Foundation

- Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked

- Asset: [View image](<https://totallyfine.foundation/visuals/dossiers/afghanistan-humanitarian-2021/afg-border-pressure.svg>)

- Original / provenance: [Open source](<https://data.unhcr.org/en/situations/afghanistan>)

## Open questions

- How many people returned to Afghanistan in 2026, as distinct from 2025, and how many of them were deported?

- Will the closure of girls' secondary and higher education end, as the Taliban say, or become a permanent ban?

- How many of the 2025 returns from Pakistan and Iran were voluntary, as both governments describe them? IOM recorded 70 per cent of early-2025 returns from Iran as forced, against 14 per cent of the Pakistan cohort deported.

- What will the next IPC analysis show, after the projection of 17.4 million people in acute food insecurity for November 2025 to March 2026?

- How much of the $1.71 billion appeal for 2026 will be funded?

## Source registry

- `afg-ocha-hnrp-2026` — [UN OCHA — Afghanistan Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan 2026](<https://www.unocha.org/afghanistan>); humanitarian; 2025-12-30
- `afg-ipc-2025` — [IPC — Afghanistan Acute Food Insecurity Analysis, Sept 2025 – Sept 2026](<https://www.ipcinfo.org/ipc-country-analysis/details-map/en/c/1159816/?iso3=AFG>); humanitarian; 2025-12-16
- `afg-iom-dtm-2026` — [IOM Afghanistan — Returnee and forced-return flows (IOM / DTM)](<https://afghanistan.iom.int/>); humanitarian; 2026-05-19
- `afg-unhcr-2026` — [UNHCR — Afghanistan Situation — Operational Data Portal](<https://data.unhcr.org/en/situations/afghanistan>); humanitarian; 2026-06-13
- `afg-unama-2025` — [UNAMA — Update on the human rights situation, April–June 2025](<https://unama.unmissions.org/>); human\_rights; 2025-07-01
- `afg-ohchr-sr-2026` — [OHCHR / Special Rapporteur Richard Bennett — Report on women's right to health (A/HRC/61/63)](<https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-afghanistan>); human\_rights; 2026-02-23
- `afg-worldbank-2026` — [World Bank — Afghanistan — Country Overview and Economic Monitor](<https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/afghanistan/overview>); research; 2026-04-26
- `afg-hrw-2026` — [Human Rights Watch — Afghanistan — country reporting](<https://www.hrw.org/asia/afghanistan>); human\_rights; 2026-06-11