UN Deputy Special Representative Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Afghanistan Ramiz Alakbarov said on Thursday his office is witnessing intensive movement of internally displaced Afghans towards the country's borders
UNITED NATIONS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 15th July, 2021) UN Deputy Special Representative Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Afghanistan Ramiz Alakbarov said on Thursday his office is witnessing intensive movement of internally displaced Afghans towards the country's borders.
"We are also seeing very intensive movements of the population to the areas, adjusting to the orders, where Iranian and Pakistan borders are now largely closed, and the people are using the illegal border crossing trying to move through those borders," Alakbarov said.
Alakbarov said the drought, the increased military activities and the gradual takeover by the Taliban opposition movement (banned in Russia) of Afghanistan's territory have contributed to these displacements.
He also noted that the United Nations is reporting deportations and removal mostly from Iran of Afghan nationals returning to the country.
Within Afghanistan, some 270,000 have already been internally displaced, leaving rural areas to seek shelter in urban and regional centers, Alakbarov said.
The total number of uprooted people in Afghanistan had reached 3.5 million this year. Pakistan hosts about three million Afghan nationals and had warned its limit to take in new refugees is exhausted.
The United Nations' humanitarian appeal seeking to also address the operation for Afghan refugees in Pakistan and Iran is severely underfunded, at only 43 percent of a total of $337 million requested for 2021.
