Afghan Refugees and Displaced

"War has displaced Afghans from their homes and from their country for over three decades. With the assistance of the largest repatriation program coordinated by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), five million Afghans returned from Pakistan and Iran between 2002 and 2011. However, the rate of refugee returns has declined significantly since 2008 due to worsening security in Afghanistan.

Key Findings

• As of 2011, there remained 1.8 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan

• There are an estimated 415,000 IDPs in Afghanistan

• Over a third of these IDPs were displaced between June 2009 and September 2010 as a result of armed conflict

• Many IDPs and return refugees unable to resettle in their place of origin live in informal settlements in Kabul and other cities

• Over half of all Afghans do not have clean water and 63 percent lack effective sanitation

• One third of Afghans survive on less than a $1 a day

• Another third of the population is ranked just above this extreme poverty marker

• Today Afghan women have a life expectancy of just 43 years"

From - Eisenhower Research Project

Additional Resource:

Refugees International - Field Report (June 2011)