UN warns against 'multi-layered human rights crisis' amid Afghan returns

The UN human rights office on Friday warned against a "multi-layered human rights crisis" due to increasing returns of Afghans.

"The surge in the number of Afghans forced or compelled to return to Afghanistan this year is creating a multi-layered human rights crisis requiring the urgent attention of the international community," the UN human rights office wrote in a statement.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk called for an "immediate halt" to the forcible return of all Afghan refugees and asylum-seekers, "particularly those at risk of persecution, arbitrary detention, or torture upon their return."

"Countries in the region must ensure that returns to Afghanistan are voluntary, safe, dignified, and consistent with international law," he noted in the statement.

The statement noted that in just over seven months, at least 1.9 million Afghans returned from Iran and Pakistan to Afghanistan—more than 1.5 million from Iran alone—with 60% of them deported.

"Sending people back to a country in which they are at risk of persecution, torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment or other irreparable harm, violates the core international law principle of non-refoulement," it underscored.