According to the UN migration agency, IOM, there are 3.5 million internally displaced persons or returnees in 15 provinces in Afghanistan, which is roughly 18 percent of the population.
One in six people is either a returnee or an internally displaced person (IDP) in the 15 Afghan provinces of Baghlan, Balkh, Farah, Herat, Kabul, Kandahar, Khost, Kunar, Kunduz, Laghman, Logar, Nangarhar, Nimroz, Paktya, and Takhar, according to the 3rd round of IOM's Afghanistan's Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) Baseline Mobility Assessment.
In the 15 provinces that were assessed, which are believed to host the nation's highest levels of returnee and displaced populations, a total of 3,549,168 individuals have either returned from abroad or were internally displaced during the six years between January 2012 and December 2017. This represents roughly 18 percent of the total base population of 16,699,381 in these provinces, the report said.
38,000 returnees from Europe and Turkey
The DTM tracks mobility, determines the number and location of forcibly displaced people and provides basic demographic information. Its main objective in Afghanistan is to supply the government and humanitarian partners with comprehensive data, enabling them to provide timely, targeted, and cost-effective assistance to conflict and displacement affected populations.
According to the survey, the returnees from abroad included 1,355,488 people from Pakistan and over 398,521 from Iran. Another 67,002 Afghans returned from non-neighbouring countries. This includes 38,620 people who returned from Europe and Turkey. With 499,194 individuals returning between 2012 and 2017, Nangarhar, a province bordering Pakistan, hosts the highest number of returnees, receiving over 25 percent of all returnees recorded in the 15 assessed provinces.
Conditions of extreme poverty
Many returnees and IDPs are living in extreme poverty and some 101,606 returnees are now living in tents or in the open air, the IOM survey says. There is also a strong trend toward urbanization. Around 48 percent (1,718,202) of returnees and IDPs in the 15 assessed provinces are living in urban districts.
"Often, particularly in urban environments, IDPs and returnees settle in so-called 'informal settlements' in close proximity to economic centres where the income earners of the family try to find daily labour. The conditions in these settlements are dire, with extremely low standards of hygiene and limited access to water," says IOM Afghanistan Chief of Mission Laurence Hart.
Outwards migration
The 15 surveyed provinces also experienced outward migration abroad between 2012-2017. Some 772,109 individuals or five percent of the population left Afghanistan and have not returned. Of these, 460,365 moved to Iran and 159,166 to Pakistan. Another 110,534 (14 percent of emigrants) migrated to Europe or Turkey.