Southern Asia · data through 2024
Afghanistan has produced one of the longest running displacement situations in the world, with large populations in Iran and Pakistan and a growing presence in Europe.
Twenty five year view
These lines show migrant stock, meaning people living outside their birth country at each point in time. They do not show annual arrivals.
Why people move
Four decades of conflict, followed by the political change of 2021, economic collapse, and severe restrictions on women and girls, have kept movement high. Large scale returns from neighbouring countries have added pressure inside the country.
Connections
Common destinations
Iran, Pakistan, Germany, Türkiye, United Kingdom, United States
Common origins
Pakistan returnees, Iran returnees
Adapting and finding support
Undocumented status in neighbouring countries blocks school and healthcare. Families who reach Europe often arrive after multi year journeys with severe unmet health needs.
Protection registration and legal representation matter more here than almost anywhere else.
Use the support guideResearch that explains this pattern
Anthropology
Migration follows the shape of a rite of passage: separation, a long threshold where a person is neither what they were nor what they will be, and eventual reincorporation.
The threshold years, waiting for status or recognition, carry their own distinct suffering and their own solidarity.
Arnold van Gennep and Victor Turner on liminality
Psychology
Grief without a body or an ending, a parent alive but unreachable, a home that still exists but cannot be returned to, resists ordinary mourning.
Families hold the loss open for years, and closure focused support can do harm rather than help.
Pauline Boss, ambiguous loss theory
Psychology
Some people report deepened relationships, clearer purpose, and new strength after severe adversity, alongside rather than instead of the pain.
Support works better when it recognises capability rather than treating arriving people only as damaged.
Richard Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun
Support inside and beyond Afghanistan
Country by country guidance for refugees, people seeking asylum, and stateless people.
Refugees and people seeking asylum
OpenAssistance, voluntary return, reintegration, and counter trafficking support through the local office.
Anyone moving, arriving, or returning
OpenFamily tracing, first aid, food, shelter, and restoring family links.
People in transit and newly arrived families
OpenThese are public organisations. The project is not affiliated with them and cannot guarantee outcomes. Nothing here is legal advice or an emergency service.
Figures are rounded published estimates. Causes and adaptation differ within every country and should not be read as a verdict about any person.