The Great Afghan Eviction

At the border post of Torkham, statecraft manifests as a line of lumbering lorries packed with chickens, plastic tarpaulins, and evicted families. Over six million people—a demographic footprint the size of a small European state—have been routed back into Afghanistan since the Taliban seized Kabul in August 2021. For many, this repatriation is a dark irony: born or raised in exile, they are being returned to a homeland they have never actually known.

Both Islamabad and Tehran have decided that hospitality has its limits, especially when domestic politics require convenient scapegoats. Citing state security and fiscal constraints, Pakistan has systematically rounded up millions of migrants, disregarding even official registration cards. In Iran, the purge gathered momentum following its twelve-day war with Israel and the United States in June 2025, where authorities quickly rebranded Afghan refugees as potential foreign intelligence assets.

The result is an administrative discharge of human misery into a country completely incapable of absorbing it. The United Nations estimates that 21.9 million citizens—nearly half of Afghanistan's total population—now require immediate humanitarian assistance to survive. UNICEF reports that one million children currently face life-threatening malnutrition, a figure compounded by severe international aid cuts tied to Western sanctions against the Taliban government.

From his offices in Kabul, Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi displays the characteristic composure of an unbothered bureaucrat. There's no doubt that we need some help, Muttaqi conceded, before insisting that there is pressure due to their return but in the long run, it will benefit them as well as Afghanistan. Brushing aside Western outrage over systemic bans on female education as mere internal affairs, Kabul points to burgeoning diplomatic and economic ties with China, India, and Central Asian neighbors. To date, Russian authorities remain the sole foreign power to have formally recognized the Taliban government.

For the returnees, however, geopolitical posturing offers negligible sustenance. While Pakistan has granted temporary deportation exemptions to 16,000 particularly vulnerable individuals, humanitarian estimates suggest up to 250,000 remain at grave risk of severe harm or political retaliation. In the cold arithmetic of regional stability, neighboring powers have effectively outsourced their social obligations to a regime that relies on international charity to keep its population from starving.

Written by Sandy van Dongen sandy.vandongen@alpineweekly.com