KABUL — The Taliban's deputy prime minister for administrative affairs, Abdul Salam Hanafi, has asked the United Nations to do more to create jobs and provide shelter for Afghans returning to the country, saying more than eight million migrants have come back in recent years, according to a Taliban statement reported by Afghan media on Monday, November 9.

Source: Taneen TV, Nov 9 2026

Hanafi made the appeal on Sunday evening in Kabul during a meeting with Rabab Fatima, the UN Secretary-General's newly appointed Special Representative for Afghanistan and head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA). Taliban deputy spokesperson Hamdullah Fitrat announced the meeting on Monday. Hanafi called on the United Nations and other international organisations to cooperate in protecting the rights of returnees, creating employment opportunities and providing shelter, and said the Taliban administration would use all available resources to support them, the Heart of Asia news outlet reported.

Source: Heart of Asia, Nov 9 2026

Fatima described addressing the challenges of returnees and managing their return as among the major challenges facing Afghanistan, and said the United Nations is working to expand coordination on assistance and employment. According to the Kabul Tribune's account of the Taliban statement, she said the UN would focus on alternative livelihoods for farmers, jobs for returning refugees and better distribution of humanitarian assistance.

Source: Kabul Tribune via Europe Says, Nov 9 2026

1.29 million returns in nine months, UNHCR says

The scale of the movement is recorded separately by the UN refugee agency. UNHCR has reported that 1.29 million Afghans returned from Iran and Pakistan during the first nine months of this year alone. Afghan officials and aid agencies identify the same pressure points for those coming back: a lack of employment, shelter, clean drinking water and basic services.

The returnee figures given by different authorities do not match. Hanafi's figure of more than eight million returns in recent years is the Taliban administration's own count. UNAMA's published response planning puts the number at nearly 5.9 million Afghans returned since September 2023 — an increase of 10 to 12 per cent of Afghanistan's population in just over two years — with 2.9 million arriving in 2025 alone and another 600,000 in the first four months of 2026. Awaaz Punjab is reporting both figures with their sources rather than treating either as settled.

Source: UNAMA, 2026 Response Plan for Afghan Returnees

The US$529 million response plan already on the table

The United Nations, together with national and international NGO partners, has a 2026 Response Plan for Afghan Returnees (RPAR) worth US$529 million (yaani about 52.9 crore dollars, roughly half a billion dollars), aimed at supporting an estimated 2.7 million Afghans projected to return from Iran and Pakistan between April and December 2026. Of that, US$100.7 million is for border reception — cash, health, nutrition, protection, water and transport at crossing points with Iran and Pakistan — and US$428.5 million is for reintegration in 35 priority districts: services, livelihoods, housing and land rights.

Source: UNAMA, 2026 Response Plan for Afghan Returnees

"Over half of those returning are women and children, many of whom were born and raised outside Afghanistan," Dr Tajudeen Oyewale, the UN Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator ad interim for Afghanistan, said in the plan's launch statement. "Without medium-term investment in livelihoods, housing, clean water, health, and protection, we risk secondary displacement, deepening poverty, and social tensions." UNAMA also notes that the border consortium's funding covers only 40 per cent of the most vulnerable returnees, even though 70 per cent meet its vulnerability criteria.

Why it matters beyond Afghanistan

The returns are driven largely by deportations and departure deadlines in Pakistan and Iran, which have pushed hundreds of thousands of Afghans — many of whom had lived abroad for decades — back across the Torkham and Islam Qala crossings into an economy with few jobs and a housing shortage. For Punjab and India, the flow matters through the region's stability, Pakistan-Afghanistan tensions and migration routes westward. What happens next depends on whether the UNAMA engagement Hanafi sought on Sunday turns into funded, delivered programmes — and on whether Pakistan and Iran slow or continue the pace of enforced returns.