As of 2026-02. Figures are for displacement caused by the 2021 takeover: OCHA/UNHCR's ~700,000 newly internally displaced in 2021 and UNHCR's ~1.6 million new arrivals in Iran and Pakistan. The forced returns since late 2023 (5.4 million by February 2026, per UNHCR) are counted in the separate expulsions entry.
As US and NATO forces completed their withdrawal in August 2021, the Taliban rapidly seized control of Afghanistan, prompting a new wave of displacement, including an estimated 700,000 people newly displaced within the country that year alone amid the collapse of the Afghan government and subsequent economic crisis. Hundreds of thousands of Afghans, including former government employees, security personnel, and members of at-risk groups, fled or sought evacuation abroad, mainly to Pakistan and Iran. UNHCR counted about 1.6 million Afghans arriving in neighbouring countries after the takeover, roughly one million in Iran and 600,000 in Pakistan. From late 2023 Pakistan and Iran reversed much of this movement through mass deportation campaigns, which are recorded as a separate event.
The Taliban seized control of Afghanistan as US and NATO forces withdrew in August 2021, triggering internal displacement and refugee flight, later compounded by large-scale expulsions of Afghans from Pakistan and Iran
UN Population Division estimates put Afghanistan at about 40.1 million in 2021. IOM and UNHCR recorded roughly 700,000 newly internally displaced in 2021 alone on top of an existing 3.5 million IDP caseload, and several hundred thousand left the country; since late 2023, mass expulsions have run the other way, with UNHCR reporting 5.4 million Afghans returned from Iran and Pakistan.
No comprehensive count exists for the period after 15 August 2021. The ISKP suicide bombing at Kabul airport on 26 August 2021 killed over 180 people (169 Afghans and 13 US service members); UNAMA has documented several hundred extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, cases of torture and enforced disappearances of former government officials and security force personnel, and Human Rights Watch documented the same pattern in its 2021-22 investigations; ISKP attacks on Hazara Shia mosques, schools and neighbourhoods have killed hundreds more. Far larger mortality attributed to the post-2021 economic collapse, banking sanctions and aid cuts is not counted here, and the Taliban authorities dispute UNAMA's findings.
UNAMA's human rights reporting and Human Rights Watch documented extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention and torture of former Afghan National Defence and Security Forces members and former government officials after August 2021, despite the Taliban's declared amnesty.
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran