NEW YORK: Amid daily battles between government forces and insurgents, the number of internally displaced Afghans has risen to 1.2 million people, up from 500,000 in 2013, according to a new report by the Amnesty International.
In its latest report, the London-based rights group says that the figures, when combined with the 2.6 million Afghans living as refugees abroad, means that almost every family in Afghanistan has experienced being driven from their homes at some point over the past 40 years.
The report, My Children Will Die This Winter: Afghanistan’s Broken Promise to the Displaced, found that the internally displaced people in Afghanistan suffer from a lack of suitable shelter, severe food and water shortages, almost nonexistent healthcare and virtually no opportunities for education or employment.
“While the world’s attention seems to have moved on from Afghanistan, we risk forgetting the plight of those left behind by the conflict,” Champa Patel, South Asia director at the Amnesty International, said ahead of the report’s publication. “Even after fleeing their homes to seek safety, increasing numbers of Afghans are languishing in appalling conditions in their own country, and fighting for their survival with no end in sight,” she said.
Amnesty says that the government corruption, inadequate funding and a lack of global support have all contributed to the policy’s failure. Despite Afghan authorities promising to improve the conditions the displaced persons are living in, the Amnesty International said it found that forced evictions ‘from both government and private actors’ is a daily threat.
Many of the civilians caught up in the ensuing violence have fled, often settling in displacement camps within their own country. “We’re talking about almost 1,000 people every day,” Olof Blomqvist, Amnesty South Asia researcher, said while speaking about 2016 alone.
