As tens of thousands of returnees pour across the border from Iran each week, UNICEF has warned of a mounting humanitarian crisis, particularly for children, many of whom are arriving exhausted, malnourished and uncertain of their futures.
In a firsthand account published Wednesday, UNICEF’s Regional Director for South Asia described scenes of distress at the Islam Qala border crossing in western Afghanistan, where up to 30,000 people have crossed in a single day.
“Watching hundreds of families trudging under the heat and dust, many with nothing but the clothes on their backs, is one of the most arresting sights I’ve witnessed,” the director wrote. “It is a scene of desperation.”
Among the returnees are students like Fatima, a 16-year-old who had dreamed of becoming a doctor before being forced to leave Iran. Now back in Afghanistan, where girls are banned from most secondary and higher education, her prospects have dimmed.
Another child, a boy who had migrated to Iran to support his family, returned home empty-handed and heartbroken. In child-friendly spaces set up by UNICEF, children like Sahar, age 9, draw memories of the homes they were forced to leave behind.
UNICEF and its partners are working at the crossing to provide critical health services, including polio vaccinations, nutritional screening and therapeutic food for malnourished children. The agency is also distributing safe drinking water, installing sanitation facilities, and creating child-safe spaces for rest and play.
But the scale of the crisis, exacerbated by drought, conflict, and widespread poverty, is outpacing the response.
“The needs are vast,” the director wrote. “We urgently need more funding, more support from the global community to ramp up and sustain the response.”
UNICEF has warned that Afghanistan, already home to one of the world’s largest displaced populations, cannot absorb the surge in returnees without international assistance. The organization is calling on donors and governments to step up before the crisis deepens further.
