Figures Show Afghans Fleeing Fighting as Refugees Pushed to Return
More than half a million Afghans fled their homes during 2016. The displacement, driven by heavy fighting, came as more than one million Afghan refugees were returned to the country.
Some 580,000 people have been displaced within Afghanistan by conflict between insurgents and government forces, according to the U.N. Despite this upsurge in internally displaced persons (IDPs), Afghan refugees are being pushed to return home from Iran and Pakistan, as well as being deported in larger numbers from European countries.
One-third of those who fled their homes did so in October, according to the Afghanistan Analysts Network, when there were simultaneous assaults by the Taliban on Kunduz, Farah and Maymana, in the northern Faryab province, and Helmand’s Lashkar Gah in the south.
Some 56 percent of IDPs were under 18 years of age and the U.N. noted displacement in all but three of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. The surge of returnees is complicating efforts to assist IDPs, U.N. officials said in December.
Charities Alarmed by Shift in Aid Spend to Refugees
Charities have expressed concern that aid money is being diverted to assist refugees in rich countries. The amount of total global development assistance spent on refugee hosting in developed nations doubled to $12.1 billion during 2015.
Hilary Jeune, aid policy expert at Oxfam, said total aid figures should not include refugee costs, adding, “This is aid which never leaves rich countries.”
Sara Harcourt, from development charity ONE, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, “It’s crucial that we protect and support people fleeing war and insecurity. But it is short-sighted to do this by shifting resources away from the world’s poorest people.”
Final figures for 2015, released January 4 by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), showed overall aid was up. Official development assistance (ODA) hit a record $131.4 billion in 2015, a rise of 6.6 percent in real terms from 2014.
The U.S., which gave $30.1 billion in aid, remained the largest donor in 2015, followed by Britain with $18.5 billion, then Germany, Japan and France.
German Police Call Out Fake News of Migrant Incidents
German police have denounced fake news reports that refugees caused problems in Dortmund on New Year’s Eve.
Websites outside Germany carried articles claiming that a “mob” of migrants attacked police and set fire to a church.
A small fire at a church was caused by a stray firework, said police spokeswoman Nina Vogt. “There’s no indication it was directed there on purpose.
“New Year’s Eve night really was pretty quiet,” she said, adding that reports saying otherwise “absolutely don’t correspond to reality.”
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