Afghanistan
& the Afghan People

Region

Afghanistan is a landlocked country in Central Asia wedged between the political powers of Iran and Pakistan and positioned south of the Ex-Soviet Union states of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan with the tip of it's far north eastern border touching China's mountainous western region.

Over 50% of Afghanistan's landscape is extremely mountainous with the highest peak reaching 7, 485m (24,446 ft.) while in the southern regions the land forms dry and barren plains. Afghanistan is very vulnerable to earthquakes due to a major fault line running through the north of the country, where three tectonic plates meet. This has resulted in devastating earthquakes that have left communities flattened. Floods, also, frequently destroy homes and livelihoods when torrential rains hit drought prone, impenetrable soil and poorly established infrastructure.

Afghan people

Afghanistan has experienced decades of devastating wars, natural disasters, economic instability and crippling poverty. It is thought that 90% of Afghans live below the poverty line and more than half depend upon foreign aid for daily living. Literacy levels in Afghanistan is estimated around 43%, however, for women that does a shocking plummet to 30%.

Within this nation of 38 million people, lies a tapestry of 70 different ethnic groups, 42 languages and 34 provinces. The two main languages spoken in Afghanistan include Pashto, spoken by 13 million people and Dari, spoken by 9 million people. In addition, there are estimated 40 minority languages and over 200 dialects. This creates a beautifully diverse country yet holds the painful challenges of internal conflict and rivalry between ethnic groups, especially between the Sunni majority and Shia minority. Yet across them all, strings a rich communal and hospitable culture, with guests being treated with the highest regard and extended extravagant generosity; communities are closely knitted together, and it is of high value to share all aspects of life together, including delicious feasts and copious amounts of tea.

According to the UNHCR there are 4.2 million forcibly displaced people within the country along with 6.4 million refugees and 296,033 asylum seekers from Afghanistan across 101 counties worldwide.

As of the beginning of 2024, the largest populations of Afghan refugees & asylum seekers were in:

Iran (3 431 680)
Pakistan (2 128 694)
Germany (298 601)
Turkey (139 333)
France (82 192)
Austria (50 392)
Greece (38 379)

Recent History

Afghanistan has experienced decades of wars and invasion. In the 1980's the Soviet Union invaded the country, followed by civil war, with the Taliban (an Islamic extremist group), increasingly gaining control of the nation throughout the 1990's and in 1996 securing the capital city, Kabul.

In 2001, after the terrorist attacks instigated by al-Qaeda on New York city, America declared war with Afghanistan, the nation where al-Qaeda found sanctuary. Within a few months the Taliban no longer held power, yet, a 13 year long war continued with devastating losses on all sides. This was followed by another 10 years of instability and violence, with continued terrorist attacks mainly targeting the Hazara people, a mainly Shia Muslim minority people group; each year between one thousand to three thousand terrorist attacks were experienced within the nation (Statista 2024).

In 2021, as America began withdrawing their troops from Afghanistan the Taliban quickly managed to topple the Afghan government and gain back control of the country, staking their flag in the ground and declaring the nation as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. As of yet, the international community have not recognised the Taliban as a legitimate government. Though this is slowly changing with China and Russia building closer ties with the country.

Since the Taliban took over power in August 2021, women's rights have plummeted - they have been pushed out of the work place, forced to cover the entirety of the bodies, and only allowed to leave their home if accompanied by a male, no matter the age. Girls can no longer receive an education past middle school and in 2022 the brutal punishment of stoning to death was brought back in for women caught in adultery.

Prior to the Taliban's resurgence to power, they were highly invested in the opium & heroin drug industry. After 2021, however, they started to destroy opium fields and try to clear out the drug addicts from the streets by rounding them up and putting them in drug rehab centres. These have proved to be highly ineffective, however, and drug use throughout the nation persists, ravaging lives across all generations. And now, chemically made methamphetamine is on the rise in Afghanistan, with laboratories scattered across the country.

While some form of order has returned to the country under the Taliban regime, mainly because of the implementation of brutal punishments such as execution and amputations, many who were unable to escape the country remain in hiding. These ones live in fear of their lives and are wanted by the Taliban because of their ethnicity, associations with the previous government and foreign forces, high education and human rights advocacy, religious conversion, or multiple of the above.

For those not on the Taliban 'wanted' list, and with ethnic alignment with them, Afghanistan has become a safer place. However, the threat of ISIS-K attacks is always present, an Islamic extremist group who wants to restore Khorasan (a region including most of the 'stan' nations) and set up Jihadist rule. The Taliban are playing a precarious game in trying to win favour with the outside world, while trying to 'manage' the internal threat of ISIS-K and not lose sides with al-Qaeda. Political tension with Pakistan has also increased in the last year as the Taliban have bluntly refused to acknowledge the Durand Line (the border with Pakistan) which separates the Pashtun people (18 million in Afghanistan and 40 million in Pakistan). As tensions rise, Pakistan has successfully built a fence along the whole western border to hopefully limit the Pakistani Taliban collaborating with the Afghan Taliban. In 2023, Pakistan also started mass deportation of undocumented refugees back to Afghanistan, while those registered have until June 2025.

After decades of instability Afghanistan remains in an unstable situation. Precariously positioned between many political powers, with the Taliban trying to manage the threats from outside and from within. All the while needs of their own people remain dire and millions more are being forced back into an already economically struggling country.