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April 4, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
AP: At least 62 people suffocated to death in the back of a truck packed with illegal migrants, and dozens were rescued unconscious after Pakistani police acting on a tip opened the vehicle Saturday near the Afghan border. More than 100 people were packed inside the 40-foot-long (12-meter-long) metal container, Bakhsh said. He said survivors were rushed to the hospital, many of them unconscious. Full news...
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March 23, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Residents of Garoch village in eastern Laghman province, who fled their homes as a result of several US forces air raids, are in dire need of shelters, fuel and drinking water in their makeshiftarrangements near the capital city of Mehtarlam.Garoch village northwest to Mehtarlam is surrounded by mountains range connecting to Sarobi district of Kabul province came under US air-strikes thrice, forcing the residents to flee and take refuge in Mehtarlam city. Full news...
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March 22, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IRIN: The more than 1,000 children deported from Iran to Afghanistan’s western province of Herat in 2008 face poverty and are at risk of abuse, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and Most of the deported teenagers were working as economic migrants in the neighbouring oil-rich country where they are considered “illegal intruders” and qualify for forced expulsion. provincial authorities. Full news...
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March 15, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IRIN: Life for Jamaluddin’s family was much better when they lived as refugees in Pakistan in the 1990s; things have got worse since they returned to Afghanistan in 2008. Like millions of other Afghans, war and fear of death forced Jamaluddin to flee to Pakistan. Insecurity, land disputes and lack of jobs have stopped tens of thousands of returnees from moving to their original areas and rebuilding their houses. Some households, including Jamaluddin’s, have set up tents and mud huts in different parts of the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar. Full news...
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February 26, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IRIN: A provincial official said about 400 families (around 2,000 individuals) had been displaced across the province over the past two months. Most of the displaced have set up tents or sought shelter in dilapidated houses in the outskirts of the provincial capital. Due to below zero temperatures and lack of access to safe drinking water, many internally displaced persons (IDPs), particularly children, are prone to diseases such as diarrhoea and pneumonia. Full news...
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January 5, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IRIN: Azizullah's family left their home in the Sangin District of Helmand Province, southern Afghanistan, because of the worsening conflict, drought and food security situation. Their new home is a one-room mud-hut in the western outskirts of Kabul where over 4,500 internally displaced persons (IDPs) have established a makeshift camp. "We abandoned our home because of aerial strikes [by international forces] and brutalities by the Taliban," Azizullah told IRIN as his six bare-foot children huddled around him on a cold afternoon on 28 December. Full news...
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November 27, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Independent: The collapse of Afghanistan is closer than the world believes. Kandahar is in Taliban hands – all but a square mile at the centre of the city – and the first Taliban checkpoints are scarcely 15 miles from Kabul. Hamid Karzai's deeply corrupted government is almost as powerless as the Iraqi cabinet in Baghdad's "Green Zone"; lorry drivers in the country now carry business permits issued by the Taliban which operate their own courts in remote areas of the country. Full news...
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November 18, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
AP: Khan and his children are among nearly 4,000 Afghan families living in a makeshift settlement because their homes were destroyed or overtaken in the decades they spent abroad waiting out wars. First, with the former Soviet Union in the 80s, then the strife of civil war and most recently the U.S. offensive against the Taliban. At the height of their exodus, Afghans made up the world's largest refugee population with 8 million people in more than 70 countries. More than 5 million of these people have returned home since 2002, according to the U.N. Full news...
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November 13, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IRIN: UXOs and explosive remnants of war have also been reported in other returnees' settlements in the eastern provinces of Nangarhar and Kunar. Hundreds of thousands have returned there in the past few years. "About 200 metres from our settlement the area is full of landmines and explosive devices which often kill animals," said Mohammad Afzal, a resident of a settlement in Nangahar Province. Provincial officials said mine-clearing agencies had been asked to re-examine areas in Baghlan and Nangarhar provinces for any hazardous explosives. Full news...
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November 9, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Quqnoos: Jobless refugees turfed out of Iran turn to lives of crime, officials say. Rising unemployment has forced many people living in the south-western province of Nimroz to turn to crime, militancy or drugs for money, officials say. About 30,000 illegal Afghan immigrants have been ordered out of Iran since the start of October for not having work permits. The returnees say they are willing to work in Nirmoz for $2 a day, but they complain that there are no jobs available for them. Full news...
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September 13, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IOM: Trafficking in persons is a crime that can impair a personality and even destroy a human life and it gravely affects today’s Afghanistan as a source, transit and destination country. The traffickers ruthlessly exploit men, women and children by violating their basic human rights and this modern-day form of slavery continues to thrive with impunity. Full news...
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September 11, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IRIN News: Hundreds of Pashtun refugees who have returned from Pakistan to Afghanistan's northeastern Takhar Province say their properties have been seized by local people and militias from other ethnic groups. Their allegations were confirmed by the Ministry of Refugees and Returnees (MoRR). Full news...
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August 14, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
NCRI: "In the third phase of the plan to deport illegal aliens, the [Iranian regime] is bulldozing their slums in the outskirts of southern city of Shiraz," Jam- e jam added. Ali Gholami, Shiraz governor said that city council will deal swiftly with those providing shelter to Afghan refugees. Full news...
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July 27, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
SF Chronicle: Along a parched sandlot where sporadic bursts of wind kick up spinning clouds of blinding dust, Abdul Quiam wakes from an afternoon slumber. A tent constructed of bamboo poles and threadbare blankets is the weathered 75-year-old man's only defense from a scorching midday sun. Full news...
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June 23, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IRIN News: About 490,000 Afghans have been deported from Iran over the past 18 months, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and Afghanistan’s Ministry of Refugees and Returnees (MoRR) told IRIN. “One hundred and forty thousand undocumented Afghans have been deported so far in 2008, and some 350,000 were deported in 2007,” said Salvatore Lombardo, the UNHCR representative in Afghanistan, adding that most of the deportees were “single males” who had gone to Iran in search of work. Full news...
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June 20, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IRIN News: The worsening security situation, unemployment, the food crisis, drought, shelter problems and lack of socio-economic opportunities may force some Afghans who have returned to their country in the past six years to cross international borders again in search of a better life, Afghanistan’s Ministry of Refugees and Repartition (MoRR) warned. Full news...
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June 20, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Qoqnoos: Saudi Arabia has deported thirteen Afghan children after locking them in jail for six months without telling their families where they were. The expelled children, aged between five and 11, were living illegally in Saudi Arabia , according to Afghanistan’s Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs. Full news...
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June 19, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IRIN News: "I have cousins in Kabul whom I have never met. But then I also hear that the city is still full of broken buildings, that living costs there are very high and that there is a great deal of insecurity," Ghazala told IRIN. She is torn between wishing to see the city her parents talk nostalgically of, and staying on in Peshawar, where she now has roots. Full news...
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June 17, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Herald Tribune: Conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq are creating new waves of refugees, according to the United Nations refugee agency. The report released Tuesday by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees shows around 3 million Afghans fled to Pakistan and Iran, and around 2 million Iraqis moved, mainly to Syria and Jordan. Full news...
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June 16, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Guardian: The number of Afghan children discovered being smuggled through Dover has risen dramatically in the last 12 months after a surge in violence between Taliban and Nato forces in Afghanistan. Full news...
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June 2, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IRIN: The once largest Afghan refugee camp in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP), Jalozai, has been closed down and most of its residents have returned to Afghanistan, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said. More than 120,000 Afghan refugees have been repatriated from Pakistan, almost half from Jalozai, since March 2008, with UNHCR assistance. Full news...
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May 25, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Observer: Afghanistan, struggling with a huge indigenous drug problem, has a new crisis. Its drug treatment centres - particularly in the capital, Kabul - are being inundated by heroin-addicted former refugees, many forcibly expelled from neighbouring Iran and Pakistan. 'The biggest problem now is the returning addicts. It is a tsunami coming to this country,' Suliman said. Full news...
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May 14, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IRIN News: The killing and abduction of dozens of health workers in the past two years has prompted officials to shut down at least 36 health facilities in Afghanistan’s volatile southern and eastern provinces, depriving hundreds of thousands of people of basic health services, according to the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH). Full news...
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May 5, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: More than 5,755 families have so far returned to Afghanistan after their 2,808 houses at Jalozai camp, the biggest Afghan refugee camp, were bulldozed, sources said on Monday. Full news...
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May 2, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Tolo TV: The Pakistani police at the Torkham border killed a 7-year-old Afghan girl for carrying 3 kg of flour by crushing her under a car. Full news...
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April 29, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IRIN News: Hundreds of people have abandoned their homes and moved to urban areas in different parts of Afghanistan, and some have reportedly migrated to neighbouring Pakistan, due to worsening food insecurity, largely resulting from soaring food prices and low cereal supplies, provincial officials said. Full news...
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April 22, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IRIN News: Shops and mud-huts owned by Afghan refugees in Jalozai refugee camp in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province have been demolished and refugees who still live there have been ordered to vacate the area by the end of April, according to Pakistani officials and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). Full news...
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April 20, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Middle East Times: During the previous year, an estimated 434,000 Afghans used hashish, 130,000 used opium and 41,000 used heroin, according to the UNODC. Some agencies report higher numbers, but this may be due to their failure to adjust the population base. While the population of Afghanistan is officially listed as 31.8 million, the UNODC figures are based on the figure of 23.8 million people who currently live in Afghanistan. The other 8 million, including refugees in Pakistan and Iran, live outside of Afghanistan. Full news...
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March 10, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IRIN News: Food shortages in Ajristan District of Ghazni Province, central Afghanistan, have forced some families to eat dried grass in order to survive, local people and the district administrator told IRIN. Full news...
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February 14, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
AFP: Kabul is seeking an urgent meeting with Teheran about the deportation of Afghans, the government said on Wednesday, with 7,000 forced out in the past month despite a pledge to halt expulsions over winter. Full news...