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“Many have been either directly forced to return by States where they have been residing, and others have felt compelled to do so because of threats, harassment and intimidation,” she told the biweekly press briefing in Geneva.
“The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk calls for an immediate halt to the forcible return of all Afghan refugees and asylum-seekers, particularly those at risk of persecution, arbitrary detention, or torture upon their return. Countries in the region must ensure that returns to Afghanistan are voluntary, safe, dignified, and consistent with international law,” Shamdasani stressed.
In just over seven months, over 1.9 million Afghans have returned from Iran and Pakistan to Afghanistan. From Iran alone, over 1.5 million have arrived since the start of the year. Of these, 938,000 or 60 per cent were deported – including 500,000 since 13 June.
More than 300,000 Afghans have been returned from Pakistan since 1 January this year, on top of the many hundreds of thousands more who have returned since the Taliban takeover and the Government’s adoption in 2023 of an “Illegal Foreigners Repatriation Plan”. In Tajikistan too, a group of Afghan nationals, including refugees and asylum-seekers, were reportedly summoned in Vahdat on 8 July by security officials and informed that all Afghan nationals must leave the country within 15 days.
Many Afghans have also been forced to leave or issued ultimatums from several other countries. A number of countries are also considering reversing their asylum policies granting protection for Afghan refugees.
“Sending people back to a country in which they are at risk of persecution, torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment or other irreparable harm, violates the core international law principle of non-refoulement. People also have a right to make such a claim and have it fairly considered by State authorities before any action to forcibly expel an individual. Deportations in violation of these basic rules must stop immediately,” Shamdasani said.
“At the same time, given the particularly severe situation on the ground – especially for women and girls - we call on all States to increase the availability of legal pathways for Afghans to find a safe place to live,” the spokesperson highlighted.
There is an acute humanitarian and human rights crisis in Afghanistan. The first priority must be to ensure people’s immediate needs, including food, water, shelter and healthcare, are met. They also face structural and systemic discrimination, gender persecution, issues related to ethnicity, obstacles to full reintegration into society, and a dearth of work and livelihoods as a result of a struggling economy.
Women and girls, who are systematically deprived of their rights in Afghanistan, are particularly at risk upon their return. The UN Human Rights Office has spoken out strongly against the extreme institutional discrimination and undue restrictions imposed on women and girls, the cumulative effect of which has been to almost erase women and girls from public life and prevent them from accessing basic services.
Others among those deported are journalists, and former civil servants or employees of the previous Afghan government who are particularly vulnerable to reprisals and torture by the de facto authorities upon their return.
“We implore States to do everything in their power to help those who have already endured decades of warfare, poverty and hardship, as well as extreme discrimination and threats. We must not turn our backs on them now,” Shamdasani concluded.
For more information and media requests, please contact:
In Geneva
Ravina Shamdasani - + 41 22 917 9169 / ravina.shamdasani@un.org or
Jeremy Laurence - +41 22 917 9383 / jeremy.laurence@un.org or
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STORY: UN Human Rights spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani on returns of Afghans
TRT: 02:10
SOURCE: OHCHR / UNOG
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: English/NATS
ASPECT RATIO: 16:9
DATELINE: 18 July 2025 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
SHOTLIST
- Exterior shot : Palais des Nations
- Interior shot: Briefing room
- SOUNDBITE (English)—Ravina Shamdasani, Spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR): “The surge in the number of Afghans forced or compelled to return to Afghanistan this year is creating a multi-layered human rights crisis requiring the urgent attention of the international community.”
- Cutaway: Briefing room
- SOUNDBITE (English)—Ravina Shamdasani, Spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR): “Many have been either directly forced to return by States where they have been residing, and others have felt compelled to do so because of threats, harassment and intimidation.”
- Cutaway: Briefing room
- SOUNDBITE (English)—Ravina Shamdasani, Spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR): “The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk calls for an immediate halt to the forcible return of all Afghan refugees and asylum-seekers, particularly those at risk of persecution, arbitrary detention, or torture upon their return. Countries in the region must ensure that returns to Afghanistan are voluntary, safe, dignified, and consistent with international law.”
- Cutaway: Briefing room
- SOUNDBITE (English)—Ravina Shamdasani, Spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR): “Sending people back to a country in which they are at risk of persecution, torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment or other irreparable harm, violates the core international law principle of non-refoulement. People also have a right to make such a claim and have it fairly considered by State authorities before any action to forcibly expel an individual. Deportations in violation of these basic rules must stop immediately.”
- Cutaways: Briefing room
- SOUNDBITE (English)—Ravina Shamdasani, Spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR): “At the same time, given the particularly severe situation on the ground – especially for women and girls - we call on all States to increase the availability of legal pathways for Afghans to find a safe place to live.”
- Cutaway: Briefing room
- SOUNDBITE (English)—Ravina Shamdasani, Spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR): “We implore States to do everything in their power to help those who have already endured decades of warfare, poverty and hardship, as well as extreme discrimination and threats. We must not turn our backs on them now.”
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New data showing that rivers were at their lowest level for decades last year provides further evidence that the climate crisis is real and countries must act immediately to protect themselves from the increasing threat to communities and livelihoods, the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Thursday.
The key findings from WMO’s State of Global Water Resources 2025 report covering the hydrological cycle and extreme events in the five-year period to last year:
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Glaciers disappearing
In 2025, for the fourth consecutive year, every major glaciated region on Earth lost ice mass, leading to short-term hazards including floods and long-term water insecurity, according to WMO.
Responding to a question about whether the changing global water cycle might have contributed to the deadly Nepal-China flooding disaster, Ms. Saulo explained that melting ice and rock was just one factor in the chain of events that ultimately sent a massive and deadly wall of water and debris downstream on 26 August, killing at least 1,367 people.
“You asked if it could happen again? Absolutely; the problem in this region is that there’s 63,700 glaciers at the last count,” she told a Press Conference in Geneva. “Even if you’re looking with remote sensing with satellites at these glaciers, you might see some faults, you might see some slight shifting, that does not mean necessarily catastrophic collapse. So, in order to plan for this, it’s very, very difficult. But the international community is looking very hard at ways in which we can bring people together to solve some of these monitoring issues.”
Data indicates that glaciers shrank between 2023 and 2025 with cumulative losses of 1,400 gigatonnes of water – or about one third of annual fresh water needs.
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Mr. Jenkinson said governments need to prepare for “moving baselines” as historical patterns become less reliable.
“The situation 30 years ago is not where we are today,” he said. Countries, he added, need to prepare “for those changes that have really already arrived”.
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