More than 1.2 million people applied for asylum in Europe in 2015 and another 1.2 million in 2016; approximately 15 percent of those applicants were Afghans, according to the European Union. Afghan refugees wait for up to 7 years in inhuman conditions to get response from the UNHCR. refugee hosting country after Turkey. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres meets with a group of refugees, many of them Afghans, at a hotel in Islamabad on the eve of the Refugee Summit. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) chapter in Turkey is helping to facilitate and fund these efforts. “Even reports from hospitals where someone has been admitted for a suicide attempt may no longer comply with these new regulations,” Soyer says. By 1989, within a decade of the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan, more than six million Afghans were living in Pakistan and Iran, with thousands more in dozens of other countries around the world, according to the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR. One might note where the body was found; another might have a number signifying where in a year’s sequence of burials that one took place; another might include the name of a place – the authorities’ best guess at where the deceased came from. One evening, 10 days after the accident, as Mohseni was being brought back to prison, he was told Zahra had died. Following a change in asylum procedures in September 2018, when the sole responsibility for registering non-Syrian asylum seekers was transferred from UNHCR to the Turkish authorities, Refugees International conducted a fact-finding mission to Turkey and published a report, ‘You Cannot Exist in this Place’: Lack of Registration Denies Afghan Refugees Protection in Turkey. In each year, more than half of those returning to Afghanistan were deported by Iran. “I told them we were poor, and we are only going to get medication for my child, but they detained me. For an Afghan to be granted asylum, they now needed to show they, personally, were being threatened in their country. German authorities said she had to return to Afghanistan on her own, signalling, she said, that they had little understanding of the situation in the country. “We don’t come here for fun,” Muhammad says. The local forces put a lot of pressure on people, they sent us to the front to fight when the Russians came,” he says. “My daughter’s stomach was torn apart… her stomach was out of her body,” Mohseni says. Following a recent change in asylum procedures for Afghans and other non-Syrians in Turkey, Afghans … “On this side of the mountain was Iran, and on the other Turkey … he showed me the Turkish police and Iranian police,” Mohseni says. UNHCR initiative sees Afghans in Kayseri produce 1,000 face masks a day and soap to aid hospitals and local community. “I was so focused on her stomach I did not notice her head injury.”. According to the United Nations, there some 103,221 Afghans there, of whom 3,472 have been awarded refugee status. Every month, chartered planes carry scores of Afghans who have been denied asylum in Germany back to Kabul. Turkey continues to host the largest number of refugees worldwide, as the number of people forcibly displaced across the world due to conflict, violence and persecution hit record levels. On the borders between Turkey and the EU, UNHCR is working with national partners, Turkish Red Crescent, IOM and Unicef, assessing the situation and providing humanitarian assistance where needed. UNHCR Representation in Turkey, Enis Behic Koryurek Sokak No: 15/A, ]Aziziye Mahallesi, 06550 Cankaya, Ankara, 06550 Ankara, Turkey. Turkey is home to almost 3.6 million Syrian refugees and close to 330,000 registered refugees and asylum-seekers of other nationalities, including Afghans and Pakistanis, according to the … Every Sunday, Hamdi Mohseni, his wife Serda, and their five remaining children, walk the 15km from their apartment to the paupers’ cemetery where their daughter Zahra is buried. Most of the gravestones have no names at all. The EU signed an agreement with Afghanistan in 2016, essentially tying aid for the country to assurances it would streamline the return of Afghans whose asylum claims were rejected in Europe. Reported by UNHCR in 2018, Turkey hosted 63.4% of all the "registered Syrian refugees." Hundreds of Afghans crossed the Turkey-Iran border each day in 2019. In 2019, 200,000 Afghans were deported, double the number in 2018 and four times the number in 2017, according to Turkey’s Directorate General of Migration Management. Afghan refugees in Turkey find themselves unable to work legally, waiting for a call from the United Nations that never seems to come. Afghan refugees, Turkey Although violence between NATO forces and the Taliban has decreased substantially over the past few years, thousands of Afghan refugees continue to reside in refugee camps in neighboring countries, such as Turkey, for fear of returning to hostility and violent retribution. As a result, the number of asylum applications in Europe fell to around half a million annually. Zimbabwe is hemorrhaging gold. The two relatives turned back, but he continued with his son. The law was eventually enacted but with penalties only for civil servants who help those scheduled for deportation. Under the administration of the governorships, the Social Assistance and Solidarity … Article 78(3) of the Treaty of the Functioning of the EU (TFEU) has been evoked by the Greek Government in this regard, however this provision allows for provisional measures to be adopted by the Council, on a proposal from the Commission and in consultation with the European Parliament, in the event that one or more Member States are confronted by an emergency situation characterised by a sudden inflow of third country nationals while it cannot suspend the internationally recognized right to seek asylum and the principle of non-refoulement that are also emphasized in EU law. But they kept driving late into the night, as they took unpaved roads through the mountains to evade police. However, Amnesty International found out that refugees were forced to sign voluntary repatriation forms in Turkish which they were unable to understand. In 2015 and 2016, at the height of the flow, nearly half a million Afghans in total were able to apply for asylum in Europe. This leaves irreparable harm in the lives of refugees. UNHCR must explain why the case of all Afghan refugees, which have been accepted already by UNHCR, are suspended within 5 to 7 years. 02 March 2020 “We wanted to stay in Iran, to not go far from Afghanistan, and everything happened so fast we had no choice,” says Naiby, 23, who now lives in Cologne, Germany.   |  عربي, A mother and her two children were among the thousands of refugees and migrants who reportedly made their way to the border over the past days. The UNHCR estimates that 10,000 Afghans will arrive in Turkey seeking asylum this year. Turkey also maintains a significant non-Syrian population. Schools were hit especially hard, becoming the target of attacks by ISIL. As in all such situations it is important that the authorities refrain from any measures that might increase the suffering of vulnerable people. Germany followed up by officially declaring there were “internal protection alternatives,” in Afghanistan – that Afghan cities like Kabul were safe to deport most Afghans to. He was told either to pay to hire a horse or to leave his children and wife behind because they would slow the group down. “I covered as an Iranian girl and I spoke Farsi, not Dari, because I was born in Iran and I didn’t know how to speak as my father or mother speak Dari,” Kubra says. In the last few years, German lawmakers have made it easier for police to detain Afghans scheduled for deportation to make sure they are put on a flight. Before leaving Afghanistan, Naiby’s mother worked as the top official overseeing women’s prisons in Kabul. In the winter, snow makes the roads impassable. For most of the last half-century, Afghans have been the largest group of refugees in the world. Zakira Hekmat too confirms these arbitrary actions. With Afghanistan still suffering from war and with few prospects of a stable future in Pakistan, Muhammad – who used to work informally at a vegetable market or transporting goods in wheelbarrows – says he decided to try for Europe. “They told me how to pass to not be arrested by either.”. For the Yakoubi children, three daughters and a son, growing up in Iran brought the realisation that despite being born there, most Iranians were not ready to accept them. UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is appealing for calm and an easing of tensions on Turkey’s borders with the European Union in light of the present increased movements of people there – including refugees and asylum-seekers. But, like the estimated three million other Afghans in Iran, Yakoubi worked with no guarantee employers would keep their promise to pay wages, and he had no one to turn to when he got injured on the job. In the Turkish village of Sariciman, at the Iranian border, some 96km (60 miles) northeast of Van, the fresh-faced mayor, Saban Ulgen, says he cannot remember a time when Afghans were not coming down the nearby mountains that mark the frontier. And German authorities floated the idea of following a trend in other European countries of prosecuting refugee rights activists for simple actions like publicising the time and location of a deportation flight. Afghans have to wait up to two years before being granted refugee status, but UNHCR made a statement in May 2013 saying that all Afghan applications for refugee and asylum status have been frozen. They hiked through the mountains along the border, and in the winter snow, he says nine of the other Afghans travelling with him died. “People are in a constant state of fear, they are not living normal lives,” Muhammad says. They rely on the kindness of locals and other Afghans. Al Jazeera reported that 12 Afghan refugees fighting COVID-19 in the Turkish city of Kayseri are helping local volunteer groups with funding from the UNHCR. Can a key reform curb smuggling? ▪Community-based protection: Key ways that UNHCR Iran engages with … They took out all my fingernails with pliers,” he says. So Naiby, her parents, brother and sister, left for Iran. Some were able to return, for a while, but had their lives upended by a fresh eruption of conflict and violence – either to be displaced elsewhere in the country, or to become refugees yet again UNHCR is monitoring developments in Turkey … They paid smugglers to cross into Iran from Afghanistan’s Herat province, then spent another month and a half being passed from one smuggler to the next, westward through Iran. Dear UNHCR Authorities, Afghans refugees are the third largest irregular refugee group in Turkey. The officer, she says “was just checking off yes or no on a list of questions.” A week after the interview, in early 2016, Naiby got a letter saying her claim had been rejected because, as German law now required, she had failed to explain why she, personally, was in danger. … Consequently, the EU imposed rules making it much more difficult for refugees to make the journey, signing a deal with Turkey which agreed to accept the people Europe returns. 10 Jun 2020 A group that receives less attention than Turkey’s 3.5 million Syrian refugees, Afghan refugees in Turkey face many difficulties, including in accessing housing, education, and employment. Muhammad and other Afghan refugees who fled the Soviet invasion made Pakistan the world’s largest host country for refugees for more than two decades. When it comes to Afghan refugees in Turkey, we believe that UNHCR chooses not to uphold the rights of these refugees, and refuses to comply with its own mandate. Estimates of the undocumented Afghan population in Turkey vary widely. Most are shackled in their seats and guarded by German police officers hired as private security to accompany them on the flights.   |  Français Left with nowhere close to home to take refuge, many are trying for Europe, a journey that takes them west through Iran and Turkey. As of October 2017, of the non-Syrian population of protection-seekers in Turkey: about 44% are from Afghanistan, 42% are from Iraq, and 10% are from Iran. Kubra Yakoubi, second from left, joins others from Afghanistan and Iran, as they attend weekly Turkish language lessons in Van, Turkey [Oscar Durand/Al Jazeera]Simple things like enrolling in university, or using public gyms, or joining a high school indoor football team, she says, became nearly impossible. Their goal was to reach the capital, Ankara, where they would register for temporary protection with the UN. Measures taken by the EU and Turkey to stem the flow of people to Europe have sharply reduced asylum applications in Europe. Despite being born in Iran and speaking Farsi like a local, she says her hopes were dashed by a litany of laws meant to keep Afghans from settling down. According to Turkish officials, the vast majority of graves have been filled with Afghans, who for four decades have been fleeing the chaos wrought in Afghanistan by one of the world’s longest ongoing conflicts. Pakistan is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol. The Islamic Republics of Iran and Pakistan jointly host 91 per cent — some 2.4 million — of Afghan refugees worldwide. With an influx of refugees and asylum seekers since 2011, the once-small operation now finds itself serving the largest… Turkey currently hosts the largest population of refugees in the world, including a growing number of Afghan refugees. UNHCR said it is "urging states to resettle as many refugees as possible in 2020 in order not to lose those resettlement opportunities for refugees, and to maintain resettlement quotas for 2021." Up to 50 per cent of Afghan refugees … “There is no advantage of being near the border, except the smuggling, but that brings its own problems,” says Ulgen. Turkey is home to almost 3.6 million Syrian refugees and close to 330,000 registered refugees and asylum-seekers of other nationalities, including Afghans and Pakistanis, according to the UNHCR. Pakistani law grants birthright citizenship, but as a matter of policy, Islamabad has not applied it to Afghans like Muhammad. No longer could an Afghan in Europe say they needed asylum because their country was at war. It took two more years for the Naiby family to be reunited in Germany, and a lengthy court battle for Naiby herself to get another chance to make her case for asylum. When she appeared in a documentary about Kabul’s largest prison for women – a rare all-access look at the lives of female prisoners accused of sex crimes – that drew the ire of the Taliban. Serda, a refugee from Afghanistan, holds photographs of her daughter Zahra, who died while the family was being smuggled to Europe. Instead of calling an ambulance, the driver called other smugglers, who dropped the family off outside a hospital where Zahra was admitted for treatment. At least 54 migrants died in June when the boat they were in sank as they attempted to avoid checkpoints along the roads in eastern Turkey by crossing Lake Van, near the Iranian border. Neither the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees nor EU refugee law provides any legal basis for the suspension of the reception of asylum applications. Iranian police stopped them and asked for their documents. Mohseni was holding four-year-old Zahra in his lap, when, somewhere near the town of Bitlis, the minivan flipped off the road. The volume, kept wrapped in layers of colourful cloth and bound by a yellow sash, is the only possession the Yacoubi family has managed to hold on to in the 38 years since they left Afghanistan. See more of UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency on Facebook Already forced to work at the bottom of the Iranian economy, Afghan families like the Yakoubis became the target of ire from Iranians who claim they are taking their jobs. More than 10 percent of Afghan patients have attempted suicide, and more than 60 percent of them have clear suicidal tendencies, but few are able to obtain the proper documentation to prevent deportation. In early 2019, he paid thousands of dollars to smugglers in Pakistan who led him, his 11-year-old son, and two relatives to the Pakistan-Iran border, then across Iran to the Turkish border. But a host of restrictions still apply even if an Afghan is properly registered. “So I had to pick up my son and put him on my back to move fast.”. “That is why people became refugees,” he says. Colombia followed, hosting nearly 1.8 million displaced Venezuelans. In 2003, Iran began requiring all Afghan refugees to register for a protected status in exchange for restrictions on where they could work, live and attend school, or face deportation. Most have fled the war in Afghanistan. Afghan diaspora/refugees; Regions with significant populations Iran 2.5 million (2015 estimate) Afghans in Iran Pakistan 2+ million Afghans in Pakistan Germany 260,000 (People holding Afghan citizenship as of 31.12.2018) Afghans in Germany United Arab Emirates 300,000 UAE Russia 150,000 Afghans in Russia Turkey 120,500 Afghans in Turkey … Officials allege 55 migrants were forced into a river by Iran’s border guards, with some of them beaten and tortured. There are around 2.8 million documented and undocumented Afghan refugees living in Pakistan, making it the largest refugee population in the world after the Syrians in Turkey. Only 15,425 refugees … … By the time they were finally interviewed by German asylum officials about their case, Germany and the EU had made it far more difficult for Afghans to be granted asylum. There are also Afghan refugees in Turkey and in Europe, where they make up the second largest refugee population after the Syrians. In 2010, refugees from Afghanistan numbered near 3,500 and made a sizable proportion of Turkey… To drive the point home, German authorities have bought billboards in Kabul and plastered ads in trains in Europe warning Afghans that they will not receive asylum. Turkey currently hosts some 3.6 million registered Syrian refugees … Germany hosted the third largest number, almost 1.5 million, with Syrian refugees … But the migrants, Afghans among them, continue to come. Wiry and animated, the 28-year-old graduated from a university in Tehran and dreams of becoming a professional athlete. I had a family, we hoped that soon enough peace would come back and we could return. Her interview took less than one hour. Refworld contains a vast collection of reports relating to situations in countries of origin, policy documents and positions, and documents relating to international and national legal frameworks. They comprise the largest protracted refugee population in Asia, and the second largest refugee population in the world. Turkey's refugee breakdown in 2019 was "neighbor countries:" Syrians 3.6 M, Iraqis 142,000, Iranians 39,000, "Asia:" Afghans 172,000, "Africa:" 11,700. She takes them out, gently pressing Zahra’s pretty, blood-stained, dress to her cheeks. As of 26 June 2020, refugees of the Syrian Civil War in Turkey …   |  Español Pakistan is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol. 1) The UNCHR causes our problems to increase by not proceeding our files quickly. Above and below them in their apartment building are other Afghan families whose journey to Europe has also been cut short. © REUTERS. Two years ago, Mohseni – an ethnic Hazara from Jaghori, in Afghanistan’s central Ghazni province – simply wanted to take his daughter Faisa, who was 12, to a nearby city to get medical treatment for her seizures. He turned over the rest of his money for the horse to carry his wife and five of their children, while he carried one daughter on his back. At the top of the ridge, the smuggler left them. Continued European resources, capacity and solidarity are needed to boost Greece’s response. Sprawled on cushions in an apartment in Van, an ailing Khodadad Yakoubi, 76, carefully traces his fingers over the lines in his Quran, proudly reciting. Some 477,000 Afghans returned home from Iran in 2019, 770,000 in 2018, 462,000 in 2017, according to the International Organization for Migration. The last few years, according to the UN, have been the deadliest in Afghanistan for more than a decade, with more than 10,000 civilians killed or injured every year since 2014. Since 2014, Turkey has been the country hosting the largest number of refugees under UNHCR’s mandate in the world – with the vast majority being nationals of the Syrian Arab Republic. Some days, the smugglers demand more money, other days they say they must wait for the Turkish police along the roads to let their guard down. Serda keeps the clothes her daughter wore in a plastic bag in a closet. How Afghan refugees are helping Turkey fight coronavirus UNHCR initiative sees Afghans in Kayseri produce 1,000 face masks a day and soap to aid hospitals and local community. There are about 20,000 Afghan refugees in Turkey, most of whom have arrived in recent months, according to the Ankara office of UNHCR, the UN refugee agency. Greek authorities are shoving refugees into life rafts and abandoning them at sea, according to an AP investigation. Turkey hosted the highest number of people displaced across borders, 3.9 million, most of whom were Syrian refugees (92%). Muhammad’s family returned to Nangarhar in 2005, only to find it was still a contested prize in the war between the government and the Taliban, so they went back to Pakistan. More support needed for refugee education in Iran UNHCR, 06 Dec 2019. Finally, in early 2019, one night in the city of Van – “when the smuggler figured he couldn’t get any more money out of us,” Mohseni says – they were put in a minivan and told they would be taken west to the city of Tatvan, and then on to Ankara. The city of Kabul, Afghanistan [Oscar Durand/Al Jazeera]“Is it possible to go and live in Afghanistan as a young woman, alone?” Naiby says. Afghan boy beaten to death by Turkish officers. Their foreign “guests,” as the locals refer to the people crossing the frontier, are kept in village homes with curtains drawn to keep out prying eyes. Groups there have included Syrians, Afghans, Iranians, Sudanese and other nationalities - including women, children and families, arriving in precarious conditions. Fewer and fewer applications are being approved as well. Naiby assumed that because the whole family was at risk because of their mother, asylum would be extended to her as well. It is almost two months, no answer from UNHCR or from other human rights supporting agency to help the Afghan refugees in Turkey. People are helpless, that’s why they are leaving Afghanistan.”. Bodies of ‘beaten and tortured’ Afghans recovered at Iran border, Refugees accuse Greece of pushing them back out to sea, International community urged to help Afghan refugees in Pakistan, How Afghan refugees are helping Turkey fight coronavirus. The constant war has meant there is no stable life in places like Jalalabad. He struggles to find an answer when asked what he misses about his native Mazar-i-Sharif in northern Afghanistan. Turkey currently hosts the largest population of refugees in the world, including a growing number of Afghan refugees. Afghan refugees voluntarily repatriated with the assistance of UNHCR, including 6,100 from Pakistan, 1,900 from the Islamic Republic of Iran, and 80 from other countries 2,140 households received tents and 50,650 households received core relief items and sanitary kits from UNHCR … The pressure on Afghans in Iran only intensified with the imposition of US sanctions on the country over its nuclear programme in 2018. As such, these two countries host some 12 per cent of the global refugee population. The UNHCR still registers Afghans, which gives them protection from being deported or detained, but does not give them the option to be considered for resettlement ( Dimitriadi 2015 ). They now live in Van, Turkey [Oscar Durand/Al Jazeera]Mohseni and his family are among the millions of Afghans who have fled their country. The government says it is responding to the surge in arrivals of non-Syrian refugees by building seven … Izz Muhammad has spent his entire life as a refugee, shuttling between his homeland and neighbouring countries in what he says has been a search for a stable life. But even those Afghans who arrived in Europe before the restrictions were put in place did not have an easy time being granted asylum. Those who do register with the authorities, like Muhammad, are given “Proof of Registration” cards, and each year Islamabad threatens to revoke those, blaming the Afghans for Taliban attacks in the country. UNHCR supports the development and implementation of the national refugee response strategy. Most have fled the war in Afghanistan. It didn’t happen. They have the right to reside in the country, but lack the right to work or the kind of state assistance needed to avoid working. Born in Pakistan, his family are ethnic Pashtuns from near the city of Jalalabad, in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar. … But soon after they had submitted all their documents to the embassy, a car bomb exploded there in May 2017, killing 150 people, and prompting Berlin to shut down all diplomatic missions in the country. So Muhammad and his family remained in Pakistan, among the 2.5 million Afghans there, half of whom are not registered with Pakistani authorities and all of whom are made increasingly unwelcome by the country’s laws. Dear UNHCR Authorities, Afghans refugees are the third largest irregular refugee group in Turkey. 170,000 Afghan refugees and asylum seekers reside in Turkey, as a transit country for migratory routes to Europe 5 . “I grew up with a big question in my mind,” says Kubra Yakoubi in fluent English, “what’s the difference between us, what is a refugee, what is an Afghan girl, what are these things?”. For more information on this topic, please contact: Our fight against sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment, Environment, Disasters and Climate Change. Afghan Analysts Network, Mass Deportations of Afghans from Turkey: Thousands of migrants sent back in a deportation drive, 21 June 2018. The change in policy immediately put more than 11,000 Afghans in Germany on a list for deportation and called into question hundreds of thousands of other pending applications by Afghans in the country. There are almost 2.5 million registered refugees from Afghanistan. It only became worse.”. By 2015, the province was a battlefield for a three-way war between ISIL (ISIS), the Taliban, and the government. All States have a right to control their borders and manage irregular movements, but at the same time should refrain from the use of excessive or disproportionate force and maintain systems for handling asylum requests in an orderly manner. Buying real estate, obtaining permits to work, even getting a SIM card are among a long list of activities that Afghans can only do through the help of Iranian nationals. It was our destiny. Soyer is managing director of the Munich Counseling and Treatment Centre for Refugees and Torture Victims, where hundreds of Afghans are referred each year for treatment. There are few schools in Sariciman, and little work beyond farming and raising sheep. After the US invaded the country in 2001, millions of Afghans again returned, but the optimism that accompanied the fall of the Taliban has long since disappeared. (McGreger, 2019) There are also sizeable Afghan refugee populations in India, and as far away as Malaysia and Australia. Her mother was granted asylum, but Naiby was not. Afghan refugees in Pakistan. Since 2002, more than 5.8 million Afghan refugees have been repatriated with the assistance of the UNHCR. 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