Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), led a delegation that arrived in Kabul on Monday to assess Afghanistan’s humanitarian situation and also to meet with Islamic Emirate’s officials.
Talking to reporters at Kabul Airport, Grandi said despite the crisis in Ukraine and other parts of the world, Afghanistan remains a priority for UNHCR. “But I came here also to say that there is not just the Ukraine, there are other crises in the world, other situations, that need attention and Afghanistan is a priority for us,” he said.
He said UN High Commissioner for Refugees has been helping the people of Afghanistan in the past more than 40 years and will continue its efforts to support both displaced people inside the country as well as those who have left Afghanistan and are living as refugees in other countries.
He said he will meet with Islamic Emirate officials to discuss the humanitarian situation in the country. “They agree very much that we must look at what are the solutions for the people who are refugees or displaced,” he said.
Grandi said UNHCR appreciates the security provided over the last few months which enables the humanitarians to deliver aid to people of Afghanistan in different parts of the country.
Grandi’s visit to the country comes as a report by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimated the number of internally displaced Afghans is nearly six million.
“Over one fifth of those individuals (1,327,474 or 23%) were displaced in 2021 as a result of conflict and natural disaster,” the report said.
According to IOM’s report, 8,495,365 former internally displaced persons have returned to their homes. From 2012 to 2021, 4,519,522 fled abroad and 5,149,245 migrants returned from abroad, the IOM said.
Meanwhile, a number of Afghan asylum seekers have begun a sit-in protest outside the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) building in Indonesia over what they said is a delay in processing their asylum applications.
The asylum seekers said they have been protesting for the past four days, but so far UN High Commissioner for Refugees has not told them anything about their applications.
