The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) has said that the Taliban demolished a makeshift camp in Kabul, forcing an estimated 280 displaced families out of their settlements and leaving two children dead during the evacuation.
NRC said in a statement on Tuesday that Taliban authorities began bulldozering the camp on Monday morning amid confusion as desperate families tried to flee under traumatic circumstances. By the end of the day, the camp was completely destroyed.
Affected families told NRC that a 4-year-old and a 15-year-old lost their lives during the eviction.
The statement brought to attention the “helplessness” of the affected families as a result of the unexpected evictions, indicating that they were unable to reclaim their belongings from the debris. It added that families were waiting in the street not knowing where to go while humanitarian agencies remained out of sight.
The Norwegian Refugee Council expressed concerns, calling on the Taliban authorities to halt any further eviction.
“By expelling extremely vulnerable families, the Kabul authorities have added a new chapter to the long book of the suffering of displaced families in Afghanistan,” Neil Turner, NRC’s Country Director in Afghanistan, said in the statement.
“We urge the authorities to halt any further evictions and to uphold their obligations under international humanitarian and human rights law, and in particular the Afghan National Policy on Displaced Persons, which guarantees their rights against forced eviction.”
As of December 2022, nearly 6.6 million people were living in internal displacement across the country, two-thirds of them because of conflict.
NRC’s Country Director in Afghanistan stated that evictions will deteriorate the already extreme humanitarian needs of the internally displaced people, who are on the “brink of survival and struggling” with the crisis.
