Afghan returnees face jobs crisis as six million return

Ghulam Sakhi Barat joined dozens of labourers at a roadside in northern Afghanistan this week, searching for daily wages as the return of more than six million refugees from Iran and Pakistan intensifies pressure on the war-torn country's fragile economy. The 83-year-old, wearing a frayed waistcoat in Sheberghan, the capital of Jawzjan province, said "people are going hungry" while struggling to support seven relatives amid the influx. "Since the returnees arrived, there have been fewer jobs for local people," Barat said, adding that "help is being given to the returnees, but no help is being given to the people who were already living here."

Families rebuild lives without land or prospects

Abdul Qader Hotak, 60, returned to Jawzjan after two decades in Pakistan to find his family had no land or property in the province, forcing his children — once students — into rubbish collection eight months after deportation. "My children used to go to school and study in Pakistan... Now, all of them collect rubbish to earn something," Hotak said, describing the sharp decline in living standards since crossing the border. Faqir Mohammad Khudabakhsh, a 54-year-old mason who spent twenty years working construction in Iran, said he now finds employment only three days a week amid the crush of returning workers competing for the same manual labour.

Rent surges and official contradictions

Competition for housing has driven rents up by as much as 150 percent in recent years, residents told AFP, despite claims by Saifuddin Muhtasem — director of the provincial information directorate — that a government committee controls pricing nationwide and prevents hikes. "We have no unresolved issues facing local residents or returnees," Muhtasem said, seated beside a globe and a bookshelf shaped like the map of Afghanistan, claiming that "unless someone is simply too fond of their own comfort and chooses not to work," unemployment does not exist in the country. A 30-year-old civil servant named Ahmadi, withholding his full name for security reasons, disputed this account, stating his rent has doubled in eighteen months and he had never heard of the pricing committee.

UN warns of resource wars amid drought

The United Nations projects that Aqcha district in Jawzjan will see its population surge by more than 26 percent due to the returns, with water becoming a "critical flashpoint" in the drought-hit region where prolonged dry spells have left most supplies unfit for drinking or farming. "Competition over scarce resources risks fuelling grievances, increasing displacement and promoting instability," said Georgette Gagnon, deputy special representative of the UN mission in Afghanistan, warning that sustained support is vital for both returnees and host communities facing malnutrition. Nearly one in three Afghans — 15.9 million people — face food insecurity at crisis levels or worse, according to UN data, as Muhtasem pins hope on a canal project expected to take two more years while encouraging international organisations to build shelters and noting that "God will surely provide" for other needs.