Washington — 

Editor’s note: this story was translated from the original VOA Pashto article.

The United Nations says Iran deported nearly half a million Afghan nationals back to Afghanistan in 2026.

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees, in a statement last week, said some 492,300 Afghans have been deported from Iran, which represents 85% of those returned to Afghanistan in 2026.

Iran hosts the largest Afghan refugee community in the world. According to the U.N., there are 4.4 million Afghan nationals living in Iran. This includes 1.4 million undocumented Afghans.

The UNHCR reported that some 1.3 million Afghans have been sent back to Afghanistan from the beginning of 2026 until the present.

In 2025, about 1.9 million Afghans returned from Iran, including 1.26 million who were deported.

“Many Afghan returnees continue to face significant human rights violations and protection risks inside Afghanistan,” said the UNHCR.

The United Nations reported in May that Afghanistan is facing a humanitarian and economic crisis as millions of people struggle to access essentials, including water, food, healthcare, housing, heating and clothing.

The return of Afghans from Iran and Pakistan has added to the “scale and complexity of the humanitarian crisis” in Afghanistan, says the U.N.

Afghan returnees are “with few or no resources, leaving them to settle in remote mountainous areas far from major roads and essential services. They live in makeshift shelters, often just tents under the scorching sun or on bare stones, with no access to clean water, food, or even basic shelter,” said the UNHCR. “Healthcare is out of reach, and many lack even the simplest identification documents, leaving them vulnerable and invisible in the margins of society.”

Pakistan is another country that hosts about 1.6 million Afghans, including 160 thousand undocumented refugees, who are still living in the country.

The U.N. Organization for International Migration says more than 2.68 million Afghans returned from Pakistan between September 2023 and August of this year.