In a June 7 Eid al-Adha message, Taliban Prime Minister Hassan Akhund called for Afghans who had fled the country to return to their homeland and “live in an atmosphere of peace.” His ill-timed comments came at the start of a massive wave of forced deportations of Afghan refugees from Turkiye, Iran, Pakistan, and Tajikistan. By July 30, the Taliban Deputy Minister of Refugees and Repatriation Abdul Rahman Rashid was condemning the repatriations as a “serious violation of international norms, humanitarian principles, and Islamic values.”
The Taliban regime has proven unable to provide even basic services to the vast majority of returnees. The situation poses a serious threat to the nation’s limited agricultural output, water resources, and medical capabilities.
At least on the surface, the Taliban is keeping calm. Deputy Minister of the Economy Abdul Latif Nazari continues to insist Afghanistan can rely on domestic sources. On June 28, Emirate officials declared the country had achieved self-sufficiency in 130 sectors. In late July, the public health minister touted the regime’s progress to reform the public health sector.
Despite the announcements, the numbers tell a different story. The United Nations World Food Program estimates 9.5 million people (25 percent of the country) remain in acute food insecurity. Further, 422 health facilities serving 3 million people in 24 provinces have closed this year.
The problems at the roots of this growing crisis vary, but climate change is a looming threat to Afghanistan’s food and water supplies. Even with sufficient rain, Afghanistan is dependent on aid. However, the country has experienced drought four out of the last five years. Food cultivation was uneven and food insecurity is concentrated in the northern Afghan provinces of Badakhshan, Balkh, Bamiyan, Daikundi, Ghor, Jawzjan, and Sar-e Pul. Warmer temperatures have thinned glaciers in the Hindu Kush Mountains and decreased snowmelt totals, which undermined river flows. Despite this, Afghan farmers managed to produce a reasonably healthy wheat crop this year. This was due in large part to the timely distribution of drought-resistant wheat seeds from the United Nations Food Assistance Program.
The lack of food and water is likely to persist. Future weather projects suggest droughts will be more frequent and more severe, which will further pressure Afghanistan’s diminishing groundwater supply. An increase in use of groundwater for agriculture and drinking water as well as declining replenishment rates due to lower precipitation levels has lowered water tables across the country. A recent nonprofit study showed that Kabul’s aquifer levels have dropped 25 to 30 meters. A previous study suggested that Kandahar was also suffering from a decline in groundwater supply. Around 79 percent of the population lacks adequate access to safe water.
The Taliban government is not structured to address a crisis of this magnitude. Details on the regime’s budgeting are increasingly scarce. However, data from 2022 and 2023 suggests that the government set aside just 1 percent of its budget for public health. The Taliban have focused on security, education, and core administration functions, with 60 percent of the budget going to the security forces and the intelligence service. The government left healthcare, food security, and agricultural investments to the international community, an assumption that has proven to be an enormous mistake.
Help from the international community has collapsed and a resumption of support is unlikely. The United Nations’ $2.4 billion food aid plan for the country is only 12 percent funded. Of the 9.5 million people that the World Food Program planned to support each month, only 1 million will be fed this year. The agency also noted that while they intended to start famine relief efforts in May, they were only able provide a limited response to 35 districts in 16 provinces in June due to a lack of resources. Additional health facility closures are also looming. The World Health Organization has warned that 80 percent of supported health services could shut down without fresh funding.
Not surprisingly, the Taliban have been slow to adapt. The government’s returnee camps were overwhelmed even before the recent wave of forced repatriations, providing only limited support to residents. Afghanistan was certainly not prepared for Iran to send 30,000 people across the border in a single day, as Tehran did in late June. Numbers appear to have fallen to about 10,000 a day, but most returnees lack homes, sufficient resources to purchase food, or a support network within Afghanistan. The wave of deportations has overwhelmed the limited health infrastructure at the returnee camps, leading to disease outbreaks. The government has established a small but growing number townships for returnees, but progress has been slow.
The food and water supply problem will worsen the country’s economic woes as agriculture is the primary driver of Afghanistan’s economy. The continued lack of adequate rainfall has undermined the traditional economic patterns in some rural areas. As farmers increasingly lack the funds to purchase supplies or buy goods for their families, shopkeepers and traders feel the pinch. The sheer scope of the deportations has also disrupted the flow of remittances to many families. Even the government has been forced to cut back, eliminating one fifth of civilian and military jobs.
All signs point to a worsening humanitarian crisis, barring a series of unlikely shifts by the Taliban, the international community, Iran, and Pakistan. Even if the international community provided an influx of cash and food to support the growing number of hungry in Afghanistan, it lacks the ability to address the climatological and political issues that underpin the crisis. Should Afghanistan’s neighbors stop the forced deportations, the Taliban lack the means and infrastructure to feed and support the returnees already in the country. Even if the Taliban were to quickly adjust and focus on humanitarian support, the country lacks the water resources and agricultural output to feed the population. Only collaboratively can the Taliban, their neighbors, and the international donor community provide even palliative care to the Afghan people.
Aid agencies have warned that as many as 3 million Afghans could be forced to return to the country this year. They will return to a country that is unprepared to support them and lacks meaningful support from the international community.