Ayaz Gul Sarah Zaman VOA News November 10, 2023 ISLAMABAD — Pakistan announced Friday that it had extended, after a delay of four months, the legal residence status of about 1.4 million Afghan refugees until year-end, though it again rejected calls to halt deportations of all undocumented Afghans and other foreign nationals. The announcement comes as
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty November 9, 2023 The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has said that tens of thousands of Afghans, most of them children, who were forced to leave Pakistan since the start of the month are in a dire humanitarian situation and called for immediate action to alleviate their
Ayaz Gul VOA News November 7, 2023 ISLAMABAD — The United Nations and partner aid agencies in Afghanistan said Tuesday they urgently need funds to provide “post-arrival” assistance to hundreds of Afghan families returning from neighboring Pakistan daily to avoid arrest and deportation. “More than 60% of arrivals are children,” the U.N. humanitarian coordination agency said
UN News: OHCHR is urging the authorities to halt deportations, which are set to begin on 1 November, Spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani told journalists in Geneva. Currently, more than two million undocumented Afghans are living in Pakistan, at least 600,000 of whom arrived after the Taliban returned to power in August 2021. “We believe many of
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty October 23, 2023 A recently published report by a U.S. government watchdog for assistance to Afghanistan says the unrecognized Taliban regime is reaping economic benefits through poorly monitored international aid, which it views as a “revenue stream.” The latest quarterly report by the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), covering the
Lisa Schlein VOA News October 18, 2023 GENEVA — U.N. aid officials said Tuesday that they are racing against time to provide lifesaving humanitarian assistance to tens of thousands of earthquake survivors in western Afghanistan, north of the city of Herat, before winter sets in and people whose houses have been destroyed are exposed to freezing
By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi October 16, 2023 In separate protests in Afghanistan and Germany, Afghan women rights activists have demanded the Taliban release two activists detained last month under unknown circumstances. Nearly a dozen women activists in the northeastern province of Takhar on October 15 called on the Taliban to release women’s rights activists Neda Parwani and
Khaama: The United Nations Coordination Office for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has stated that in the earthquake on Saturday, 1,294 people were killed and 688 others were injured in the Zenda Jan district of Herat province. OCHA reports that there are currently 485 individuals missing, comprising 191 men and 294 women. According to OCHA’s report, six
By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi September 29, 2023 The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) called on the Taliban on September 29 to cease “arbitrary arrests and detentions” as it highlighted the recent apprehension of two women’s rights activists in Kabul. The UNAMA said in a statement that Neda Parwani and Zholya Parsi had been detained for the
Akmal Dawi VOA News September 26, 2023 WASHINGTON — Members of the United Nations Security Council, except Russia and China, on Tuesday issued a resounding condemnation of the Taliban’s relentless persecution of women in Afghanistan, calling on all member states to take urgent action to hold the country’s leadership accountable. The U.N. Secretary-General’s Special Representative for