Amnesty International: Afghan people continued to suffer widespread human rights violations and violations of international humanitarian law more than seven years after the USA and its allies ousted the Taliban. Access to health care, education and humanitarian aid deteriorated, particularly in the south and south-east of the country, due to escalating armed conflict between Afghan and international forces and the Taliban and other armed groups. Conflict-related violations increased in northern and western Afghanistan, areas previously considered relatively safe.      Full news...

PAN: Hundreds of families, fearing the resumption of clashes between Taliban and security forces, have fled troubled districts of Marja and Nad Ali in southern Helmand province. The fresh exodus of 400 families from the towns comes nearly three months after a massive counterinsurgency operation, involving thousands of Afghan and foreign troops.      Full news...

PAN: High unemployment and deteriorating security is forcing hundreds of Afghan youths to risk an often perilous journey with ruthless smugglers in the search of a better life. Some pay with their lives. Others, such as Sher Rahman, spend thousands of dollars for the journey only to find themselves right back in Afghanistan.      Full news...

The New York Times: Farmers from the district of Marja, which since February has been the focus of the largest American-led military operation in Afghanistan, are fleeing the area, saying that the Taliban are terrorizing the population and that American troops cannot protect the civilians.... Over 150 families have fled Marja in the last two weeks, according to the Afghan Red Crescent Society in the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah.      Full news...

BBC News: United Nations aid agencies are increasingly concerned about the number of children from Afghanistan migrating across Europe alone. Latest figures from the UN Refugee Agency show that the number of Afghan children under 18 who applied for asylum in Europe last year rose by 64%, from 3,800 to more than 6,000.      Full news...

IRIN: Hundreds of families allegedly forced out of their homes in Kapisa Province, northeastern Afghanistan, by clashes between Taliban insurgents and pro-government Afghan and foreign forces have sought refuge in the eastern outskirts of Kabul. “There is always fighting, bombing and insecurity in Nejrab and Alasaay,” said one displaced man referring to the two Kapisa districts affected. He said he had lost his 15-year-old son in the fighting.      Full news...

IRIN: Dozens of families who lost their homes after earthquakes in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar in April 2009 have moved to an informal settlement for internally displaced persons (IDPs) and called for urgent assistance. Two earthquakes measuring 5.5 and 5.1 on the Richter scale rocked Sherzad and Hesarak districts in Nangarhar Province on 16-17 April, killing 22 people, injuring 59 and destroying 290 houses; 300-600 livestock were also lost and 650 families made homeless, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).      Full news...

UNDP: This year's HDI, which refers to 2007, highlights the very large gaps in well-being and life chances that continue to divide our increasingly interconnected world. The HDI for Afghanistan is 0.352, which gives the country a rank of 181 out of 182 countries. By looking at some of the most fundamental aspects of people’s lives and opportunities the HDI provides a much more complete picture of a country's development than other indicators, such as GDP per capita.      Full news...

IRIN: More than 200,000 Afghans have been expelled from Iran in the past six months, marking a 25 percent increase on the same period in 2008, according to officials. Most of the deportees are single males who had gone to Iran for employment opportunities. Hosting some 900,000 registered Afghan refugees, Iran has deported about one million Afghans considered "illegal migrants" over the past three years, according to aid agencies and government officials.      Full news...

IRIN: Over 1,000 families in a camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Kandahar Province, southern Afghanistan, have opted to return to their home areas in the north and northwest of the country because of worsening insecurity and lack of aid at the camp. Mohammad Azam Nawabi, director of the refugees’ department in Kandahar, told IRIN 1,087 families had formally expressed their desire to return.      Full news...

The Huffington Post: Since 2001, the US Air Force has dropped nearly 31 million pounds (14,049 metric tons) of bombs on Afghanistan. The UN estimates that US airstrikes alone accounted for 64 percent of the 828 Afghan civilians killed last year. Those numbers practically scream the need to abandon conventional warfare tactics in Afghanistan and dramatically shift US foreign policy to incorporate a more humanitarian approach. Instead, we're seeing the horrific images from IDP camps: refugees who have lost loved ones; parents so desperate they would rather sell their children than watch them starve; children scarred both physically and psychologically.      Full news...

Rethink Afghanistan: $100 billion, and for what? To bring more troops to Afghanistan without an exit strategy? To further US foreign policy that fails to address the humanitarian needs of the world’s third poorest country? To escalate military operations that directly result in Afghan civilian casualties?... Fortunately, there are ways to take immediate action and address Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis.      Full news...

IRIN News: Facing unemployment, insecurity and lack of socio-economic opportunities at home, many Afghans, mostly young males, have increasingly resorted to costly and perilous illegal migration to European and other industrialized countries. Over 18,000 Afghan asylum-seekers were registered in 44 industrialized states in 2008 - a significant increase on previous years, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).      Full news...

IRIN: Open defecation, lack of toilets and poor sanitation in makeshift internally displaced persons (IDP) camps throughout Afghanistan are a health threat, particularly to children, health workers and aid agencies say. According to the Afghan government, at least 230,000 people are living in formal IDP camps and informal settlements where few sanitary, water and toilet facilities are available. About 500 families (2,500 individuals) displaced from southern regions have set up shacks, tents and mud huts in Qambar on the western outskirts of Kabul.      Full news...

AP: At least 62 people suffocated to death in the back of a truck packed with illegal migrants, and dozens were rescued unconscious after Pakistani police acting on a tip opened the vehicle Saturday near the Afghan border. More than 100 people were packed inside the 40-foot-long (12-meter-long) metal container, Bakhsh said. He said survivors were rushed to the hospital, many of them unconscious.      Full news...

PAN: Residents of Garoch village in eastern Laghman province, who fled their homes as a result of several US forces air raids, are in dire need of shelters, fuel and drinking water in their makeshiftarrangements near the capital city of Mehtarlam.Garoch village northwest to Mehtarlam is surrounded by mountains range connecting to Sarobi district of Kabul province came under US air-strikes thrice, forcing the residents to flee and take refuge in Mehtarlam city.      Full news...

IRIN: The more than 1,000 children deported from Iran to Afghanistan’s western province of Herat in 2008 face poverty and are at risk of abuse, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and Most of the deported teenagers were working as economic migrants in the neighbouring oil-rich country where they are considered “illegal intruders” and qualify for forced expulsion. provincial authorities.      Full news...

IRIN: Life for Jamaluddin’s family was much better when they lived as refugees in Pakistan in the 1990s; things have got worse since they returned to Afghanistan in 2008. Like millions of other Afghans, war and fear of death forced Jamaluddin to flee to Pakistan. Insecurity, land disputes and lack of jobs have stopped tens of thousands of returnees from moving to their original areas and rebuilding their houses. Some households, including Jamaluddin’s, have set up tents and mud huts in different parts of the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar.      Full news...

IRIN: A provincial official said about 400 families (around 2,000 individuals) had been displaced across the province over the past two months. Most of the displaced have set up tents or sought shelter in dilapidated houses in the outskirts of the provincial capital. Due to below zero temperatures and lack of access to safe drinking water, many internally displaced persons (IDPs), particularly children, are prone to diseases such as diarrhoea and pneumonia.      Full news...

IRIN: Azizullah's family left their home in the Sangin District of Helmand Province, southern Afghanistan, because of the worsening conflict, drought and food security situation. Their new home is a one-room mud-hut in the western outskirts of Kabul where over 4,500 internally displaced persons (IDPs) have established a makeshift camp. "We abandoned our home because of aerial strikes [by international forces] and brutalities by the Taliban," Azizullah told IRIN as his six bare-foot children huddled around him on a cold afternoon on 28 December.      Full news...

The Independent: The collapse of Afghanistan is closer than the world believes. Kandahar is in Taliban hands – all but a square mile at the centre of the city – and the first Taliban checkpoints are scarcely 15 miles from Kabul. Hamid Karzai's deeply corrupted government is almost as powerless as the Iraqi cabinet in Baghdad's "Green Zone"; lorry drivers in the country now carry business permits issued by the Taliban which operate their own courts in remote areas of the country.      Full news...

AP: Khan and his children are among nearly 4,000 Afghan families living in a makeshift settlement because their homes were destroyed or overtaken in the decades they spent abroad waiting out wars. First, with the former Soviet Union in the 80s, then the strife of civil war and most recently the U.S. offensive against the Taliban. At the height of their exodus, Afghans made up the world's largest refugee population with 8 million people in more than 70 countries. More than 5 million of these people have returned home since 2002, according to the U.N.      Full news...

IRIN: UXOs and explosive remnants of war have also been reported in other returnees' settlements in the eastern provinces of Nangarhar and Kunar. Hundreds of thousands have returned there in the past few years. "About 200 metres from our settlement the area is full of landmines and explosive devices which often kill animals," said Mohammad Afzal, a resident of a settlement in Nangahar Province. Provincial officials said mine-clearing agencies had been asked to re-examine areas in Baghlan and Nangarhar provinces for any hazardous explosives.      Full news...

Quqnoos: Jobless refugees turfed out of Iran turn to lives of crime, officials say. Rising unemployment has forced many people living in the south-western province of Nimroz to turn to crime, militancy or drugs for money, officials say. About 30,000 illegal Afghan immigrants have been ordered out of Iran since the start of October for not having work permits. The returnees say they are willing to work in Nirmoz for $2 a day, but they complain that there are no jobs available for them.      Full news...

IOM: Trafficking in persons is a crime that can impair a personality and even destroy a human life and it gravely affects today’s Afghanistan as a source, transit and destination country. The traffickers ruthlessly exploit men, women and children by violating their basic human rights and this modern-day form of slavery continues to thrive with impunity.      Full news...

IRIN News: Hundreds of Pashtun refugees who have returned from Pakistan to Afghanistan's northeastern Takhar Province say their properties have been seized by local people and militias from other ethnic groups. Their allegations were confirmed by the Ministry of Refugees and Returnees (MoRR).      Full news...

NCRI: "In the third phase of the plan to deport illegal aliens, the [Iranian regime] is bulldozing their slums in the outskirts of southern city of Shiraz," Jam- e jam added. Ali Gholami, Shiraz governor said that city council will deal swiftly with those providing shelter to Afghan refugees.      Full news...

SF Chronicle: Along a parched sandlot where sporadic bursts of wind kick up spinning clouds of blinding dust, Abdul Quiam wakes from an afternoon slumber. A tent constructed of bamboo poles and threadbare blankets is the weathered 75-year-old man's only defense from a scorching midday sun.      Full news...

IRIN News: About 490,000 Afghans have been deported from Iran over the past 18 months, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and Afghanistan’s Ministry of Refugees and Returnees (MoRR) told IRIN. “One hundred and forty thousand undocumented Afghans have been deported so far in 2008, and some 350,000 were deported in 2007,” said Salvatore Lombardo, the UNHCR representative in Afghanistan, adding that most of the deportees were “single males” who had gone to Iran in search of work.      Full news...

IRIN News: The worsening security situation, unemployment, the food crisis, drought, shelter problems and lack of socio-economic opportunities may force some Afghans who have returned to their country in the past six years to cross international borders again in search of a better life, Afghanistan’s Ministry of Refugees and Repartition (MoRR) warned.      Full news...