Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Jelena Bjelica

A Good Smuggler is Hard to Find: The evolution of Afghan smuggling networks in the Balkans

Jelena Bjelica • Fabrizio Foschini •

In the past decade, Afghans aged 14 to 23 have become the single largest group of migrants in the Western Balkans. More than 2.5 million people – a fifth of them Afghans – are estimated to have crossed through this region since 2015 on their way to Western Europe. Over that time, Afghan migrant-smuggling networks have […]

Migration Read more

Returning to Uncertainty: How Afghan returnees from Pakistan are struggling to rebuild their lives

Nur Khan Himmat • Jelena Bjelica •

Some six million Afghans have been forcibly returned from Iran and Pakistan since September 2023, almost half of them in 2025, making it one of the largest return movements of any nationality in recent decades. 2.26 million people returned from Pakistan, one million in 2025 alone, amid an intensifying deportation campaign launched in September 2023 […]

Migration Read more

US pressure on the UN: UNAMA gets only a three-month mandate renewal

Jelena Bjelica •

The mandate of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) is due to be renewed by the UN Security Council on Monday, 16 March. Although the penholder on Afghanistan, China, had not initially suggested any changes to the mandate, following urging by the United States, the mandate will be extended only for three months, […]

International Engagement Read more

Is maternal mortality on the rise in Afghanistan? No official data, but much cause for concern

Jelena Bjelica • AAN Team •

Afghanistan’s maternal mortality rate was already among the ten highest in the world, but it has come under further pressure. The United States’ decision to entirely cut aid to Afghanistan earlier this year has led to the closure of over 400 health facilities and that is likely to have particularly affected women during the most […]

Rights and Freedoms Read more

The Fourth Year of the Opium Ban: An update from two of Afghanistan’s major poppy-growing areas

Fabrizio Foschini • Jelena Bjelica •

The Islamic Emirate’s ban on opium cultivation has entered its fourth year and apart from the first harvest of opium poppies in spring 2022, when farmers were allowed to harvest their standing crop, the authorities have enforced it, with one notable exception – Badakhshan. Farmers there have been better able to avoid the ban, both […]

Economy, Development, Environment Read more

From Welcoming Allies to Threats of Deportation: The changing status of Afghans in America

Jelena Bjelica •

Roughly 200,000 Afghans arrived in the US after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021. They mainly settled in California, Virginia, Washington DC, Pennsylvania and, the state which received the most Afghans, Texas. Many now face difficult times in what they thought was their new country after a series of orders by President Donald Trump’s administration […]

Migration Read more

Rural Women’s Access to Health in Afghanistan: “Most of the time, we just don’t go”

Jelena Bjelica • AAN Team •

Since the return of the Islamic Emirate, Afghanistan’s already fragile healthcare system has deteriorated, with stark inequalities for women and rural populations. The system faces a severe lack of funding, inadequate infrastructure and a critical shortage of qualified professionals, which has been exacerbated by prohibitions targeting women since 2021. These failings are felt most acutely […]

Economy, Development, Environment Read more

Migrating Poppy Cultivation: Afghan poppy farmers in Balochistan

Jelena Bjelica • Nur Khan Himmat •

After the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) banned opium poppy cultivation in April 2022, there was a movement of some farmers from southern Afghanistan into neighbouring regions of Pakistan to grow poppy there. The same migration to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces followed the first Taliban ban on opium in 2000-01. AAN’s Jelena Bjelica, together […]

Economy, Development, Environment Read more

Polio Cases on the Increase in Afghanistan: How is the Emirate handling immunisation? 

Jelena Bjelica • Nur Khan Himmat •

After pausing the roll-out of the vaccination programme twice last year, the Islamic Emirate finally restarted polio vaccination for under-fives in late October 2024. However, it has restricted delivery of the vaccines to mosques and village centres only. No longer will vaccinators be able to go door-to-door. It seems that the pauses and change in […]

Economy, Development, Environment Read more

Opium Cultivation in Badakhshan: The new national leader, according to UNODC

Jelena Bjelica • Fabrizio Foschini •

Although the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’s (IEA) ban on opium cultivation continues largely to hold, the area under poppy did increase in 2024, by almost a fifth, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime’s (UNODC) annual survey. Even with that increase, however, this year’s cultivation was negligible compared to pre-ban levels. What is […]

Economy, Development, Environment Read more

Returning from Pakistan: How are Afghan returnees coping back in their homeland?

Jelena Bjelica • Ali Mohammad Sabawoon •

It is almost a year since, on 3 October 2023, Pakistan’s Prime Minister announced its decision to enact the Illegal Foreigners’ Repatriation Plan. Since then, more than 700,000 Afghans have returned to their homeland. These returns were not voluntary. Some Afghans were deported, while others fled in fear of arrest and expulsion. Some, born in […]

Migration Read more

Treating Drug Users in Afghanistan: How to respond to a massive problem? 

Jelena Bjelica • Rohullah Sorush •

Afghanistan was, until recently, famously, the largest cultivator of illegal opiates in the world. Less well-known is that it is among the countries with the highest prevalence rates of drug use. In April 2022, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) banned poppy cultivation and subsequently, in January 2023, its supreme leader issued an order saying […]

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