More than four million Afghan migrants have returned to Afghanistan from Iran and Pakistan since September 2023, including over 1.5 million in 2025 alone, the United Nations said Thursday, warning of a worsening humanitarian crisis without urgent global support.
Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for the UN secretary-general, said women and girls made up about one-third of the returnees from Iran and roughly half of those from Pakistan this year.
“These returnees, like other women and girls in Afghanistan, face growing risks of poverty, early marriage, violence, exploitation, and unprecedented restrictions on their rights, movement and freedoms,” Haq told reporters in New York.
The warning came alongside a report from UN Women highlighting the dangers faced by female returnees, who are subject to the same severe limitations imposed by the Taliban as women already inside the country.
At the Islam Qala border crossing in western Afghanistan, thousands of Afghans continue to return daily from Iran, though the overall number of returnees has declined compared to the previous month, officials said.
Some deportees described being forcibly removed and mistreated by Iranian authorities.
“I had prepared all the documents for my son’s surgery,” said Faridullah, a deported migrant. “While he was lying on the operating table, they told me, ‘You’re a migrant — we can’t treat him.’ A few nights later, we were forced from our home in the middle of the night and deported.”
Others said they were extorted during the deportation process.
“When we were sent back, each of us had 10 million tomans,” said Elyas, another deportee. “Now we have only 600,000. They extorted us at every stop — 10,000, 100,000, 300,000 tomans. They even stole from us at the border.”
Gholam Ghaus, also deported from Iran, said employers exploited Afghan workers.
“They tortured and insulted us,” he said. “If we worked for 10 or 20 days, they paid for only a few. They always had an excuse to withhold our wages.”
Meanwhile, the International Organization for Migration said it expects another one million Afghans to return from Pakistan following Islamabad’s decision not to extend the legal status of undocumented Afghan nationals.
The UN warned that without immediate international assistance, Afghanistan’s humanitarian response system could collapse, placing millions of lives at risk.
