What two decades of occupation inflicted on Afghanistan

Europeans have been scrambling to control Afghan refugees, fearing that a flood of refugees would hit Europe after Taliban took over Afghanistan, forcing people flee the country because of potential increase in violence.

The UK with over 3,000 Afghan refugees in detention has been accused of keeping them in uncertainty, suspending asylum grant.

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has said that his country wouldn’t accept even a single Afghan refugee and Europe should lead them to neighboring countries.

The US has sent the majority of 57,000 Afghan refugees evacuated from Kabul airport to destinations in Europe and the US to have their documents verified. Only in Qatar, 1,400 Afghans still remain in US military bases.

European Union convened a meeting last week to address the issue, as Europeans don’t want to be struck with the same wave of refugees as they were in 2015 after the Syrian civil war began.

Europeans want to pay Afghanistan’s neighbors to accept refugees. Germany is preparing to accept 10,000 to 40,000 refugees, as German foreign minister has been told by Pakistani counterpart that Pakistan has already granted asylum to 3,000,000 Afghan refugees and the country has no more capacity.

On the other hand, Europeans have failed to fulfil their commitments regarding Iran under the 2015 nuclear deal after US withdrawal. For the reason, they can’t find a ground to discuss Afghan refugees with Iran.

That said, the main population of Afghans would remain in their country, where they face many more risks, including mines and explosive devices remained from decades of war.

The international Red Cross and Red Crescent societies have announced that the number of people, many of whom children, that are injured by such devices has increased in recent weeks. Moreover, many more have been injured in internal conflicts, as the entities say that they have helped 1,600 injured people in the first week of August.

Displaced population within Afghanistan has reached 570,000 people, while 80 percent of them are women and children.

While over 113,000 Afghan refugees evacuated by US forces, UNHCR announced that they expect 500,000 more would leave the country in the next four months.

World Food Program has said that one third of Afghanistan’s 38-million population face hunger and over 2 million children are malnutritioned.

During the occupation of Afghanistan, 241,000 people have died as a direct result of war, over 71,000 of which were civilians.

Afghanistan is considered as one of world’s most dangerous places for children. The UN has registered 7,792 deaths and 18,662 injuries among children. Afghan women are the most hurt population in the country, as 3,000 deaths and 7,000 injuries has been registered among women from 2010.

After 20 years of US occupation, Afghanistan lies in the last but one place in the ‘Women Peace and Security’ index, right before Yemen. 3.7 million children were deprived of education in Afghanistan in 2019, according to UNICEF.

Although life expectancy in Afghanistan has increased to 64 and maternal mortality rate has decreased from 15,000 to 7,700 women, other human development indices have experienced catastrophic conditions during two decades of occupation.

Afghanistan war has been the longest war in US history, spanning through tenures of four US presidents. Contrary to what many think, the peak of Afghanistan war was during Barack Obama administration when over 100,000 US forces were in the country.

This war began with deployment of 1,300 soldiers in Afghanistna by George W. Bush administration and then Joe Biden took the last US soldier out of the devastated country 20 years later.