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Afghan refugees settle in a camp in Afghanistan near the Pakistani border after being ordered home by Islamabad.
Afghan refugees settle in a camp in Afghanistan near the Pakistani border after being ordered home by Islamabad.

Welcome to The Azadi Briefing, an RFE/RL newsletter that unpacks the key issues in Afghanistan. To subscribe, click here.

I'm Abubakar Siddique, senior correspondent at RFE/RL's Radio Azadi. Here's what I've been tracking and what I'm keeping an eye on in the days ahead.

The Key Issue

A new survey has found that around 90 percent of the more than 400,000 Afghans who have been forced from neighboring Pakistan in recent months are homeless.

The British charity Islamic Relief, which operates in Afghanistan, said in a report released on November 29 that one-third of the returnees face severe food shortages, while more than 60 percent are sick.

Islamabad has been deporting thousands of Afghans each day since the expiry of its November 1 deadline for some 1.7 million undocumented Afghan refugees and migrants to voluntarily leave the South Asian country.

Islamic Relief’s report, based on interviews with 315 returnees, also found that 92 percent lacked access to safe drinking water, while 71 percent had no access to sanitation.

Some 98 percent of returnees were worried about the safety of their family members, while 90 percent were concerned about their children’s access to education.

“Many of these people are returning to Afghanistan with nothing, just as a freezing winter approaches,” said Manzoor Ahmed, Islamic Relief’s acting country director in Afghanistan. “They don’t have a place to stay, they don’t have food or health care, they are sick and impoverished.”

Why It's Important: Afghans are returning to a country grappling with the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.

The hundreds of thousands of new returnees are adding to the more than 29 million Afghans -- out of a total population of around 40 million -- who need humanitarian assistance, according to the United Nations.

The cash-strapped Taliban government, which remains unrecognized and sanctioned by the international community, appears unable to absorb the returning refugees or address the humanitarian needs of Afghans.

Aid agencies operating in Afghanistan have called for more international funding to address the needs of the returnees, who lack shelter, warm clothes, and food.

“They are forced to return to Afghanistan at the worst possible time,” said Hsiao-Wei Lee, the country director for the World Food Program, on November 26. “We need to help them not only get through this winter but also help them rebuild their lives here.”

What's Next: Many of the new Afghan returnees face a grim future.

The Taliban has established temporary camps for the returnees near the border with Pakistan, and promised to assist them. But many returnees complain of a lack of tents, food, water, and sanitation.

"Everyone I know doesn't have housing and is facing many other problems,” Abdullah, who recently returned to the southern Afghan province of Zabul from Pakistan, told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi. "It is impossible to live in tents because of the winter.”

What To Keep An Eye On

Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai is under fire for suggesting that the international community should not seek to forcibly remove the Taliban from power.

"We don't want a collapse of the regime or split of the regime. We have had enough of that in Afghanistan,” the 65-year-old told Kyodo News, a Japanese news agency, in an interview published on November 28.

Karzai, who lives in Kabul, suggested that dialogue with the extremist group could bring about changes to its controversial policies, including its severe restrictions on women’s rights.

But some rights activists criticized Karzai’s call for engagement with a group that has shown few signs of reversing its draconian policies.

"Since the Taliban returned to power, being a woman has become a crime,” Azita Nazimi, a women’s rights activist, told Radio Azadi. "All of what we have is the result of Karzai's past support for the Taliban.”

When in power from 2001 to 2014, Karzai called for a negotiated end to the war between the Western-backed Afghan government and the Taliban.

Why It's Important: Reconciliation among Afghans has long been touted as the best solution to end the more than four decades of war in Afghanistan.

But the Taliban has refused to share power with other Afghans and used force to impose its fundamentalist version of Islam on the population.

During intra-Afghan negotiations prior to the Taliban’s forcible takeover of Afghanistan in 2021, the extremist group rejected a power-sharing agreement with rival Afghans.

That's all from me for now. Don't forget to send me any questions, comments, or tips that you have. You can always reach us at azadi.english@rferl.org.

Until next time,

Abubakar Siddique

If you enjoyed this briefing and don't want to miss the next edition, subscribe here. It will be sent to your inbox every Friday.

Afghan refugees settle in a camp near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in Torkham, Afghanistan, after fleeing Pakistan on November 4.
Afghan refugees settle in a camp near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in Torkham, Afghanistan, after fleeing Pakistan on November 4.

Welcome to The Azadi Briefing, an RFE/RL newsletter that unpacks the key issues in Afghanistan. To subscribe, click here.

I'm Abubakar Siddique, a senior correspondent at RFE/RL's Radio Azadi. Here's what I've been tracking and what I'm keeping an eye on in the days ahead.

The Key Issue

The Afghan Taliban and Pakistan have been engaged in an escalating war of words over Islamabad's mass expulsion of Afghan refugees.

Last month, Islamabad ordered 1.7 million undocumented Afghan refugees and migrants to leave the South Asian country or face arrest and forced deportation after November 1. Over 300,000 Afghans, many with only the clothes on their back, have returned to their homeland since then.

Pakistan said its decision was in response to the Taliban's refusal to expel the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) extremist group. Islamabad has accused the Taliban of sheltering the TTP, which is waging a deadly insurgency against Pakistan. The TTP has close ideological and organizational ties with the Afghan Taliban.

"After noncooperation by the Afghan interim government, Pakistan has decided to take matters into its own hands, and Pakistan's recent actions are neither unexpected or surprising," Pakistani caretaker Prime Minister Anwar ul-Haq Kakar said on November 8.

Chief Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, meanwhile, said on November 8 that the group was not "responsible for maintaining peace in Pakistan."

Last week, the Taliban's defense minister, Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob, warned Pakistan to "consider the consequences of its actions and sow as much as it can reap."

Amir Khan Muttaqi, the Taliban's foreign minister, told the BBC that Islamabad was using the mass deportations to pressure the group to formally recognize the border with Pakistan, which Afghanistan rejects.

Why It's Important: The war of words has exposed the escalating tensions between the Taliban and Pakistan, longtime allies that appear to have fallen out.

The sides appear to be on a collision course, with little indication that they can smooth over their growing differences.

There have been several rounds of deadly clashes between Pakistani and Taliban forces in recent months, leading Islamabad to close the border.

What's Next: Pakistan and the Taliban appear likely to remain on a path of confrontation. As their interests clash, Islamabad and the Taliban are likely to continue seeing each other as adversaries.

Meanwhile, the continued mass expulsions of Afghans by Pakistan are likely to worsen the devastating humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, the world's largest.

What To Keep An Eye On

The Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) extremist group claimed responsibility for the latest attack targeting Afghanistan's Shi'ite Hazara minority.

On November 7, at least seven people were killed and 20 injured in a bomb attack on a bus in the predominantly Shi'ite neighborhood of Dasht-e Barchi in Kabul.

"The situation was terrible," one eyewitness told RFE/RL's Radio Azadi. "I think the casualties were high."

This was the third IS-K attack on the Shi'ite community in recent weeks. On October 26, a bomb attack killed four people inside a sports club in Dasht-e Barchi. In the deadliest attack, at least 25 worshippers were killed when a bomb targeted a mosque in the northern city of Pul-e Khumri on October 13.

Why It's Important: The Taliban has pledged to protect Afghanistan's religious minorities. But the Shi'ite community has accused the Taliban of failing to prevent deadly attacks on Hazara.

IS-K's new wave of attacks has also raised questions about the Taliban's claims that it has severely weakened the extremist group, which once controlled rural territory in eastern Afghanistan.

That's all from me for now. Don't forget to send me any questions, comments, or tips that you have. You can always reach us at azadi.english@rferl.org.

Until next time,

Abubakar Siddique

If you enjoyed this briefing and don't want to miss the next edition, subscribe here. It will be sent to your inbox every Friday.

The Azadi Briefing will next appear on December 1.

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Radio Azadi is RFE/RL's Dari- and Pashto-language public service news outlet for Afghanistan. Every Friday in our newsletter, the Azadi Briefing, correspondent Abubakar Siddique shares his analysis of the week’s most important issues and explain why they matter.

To subscribe, click here.

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