KABUL: Weeks after he was forced to return from Iran, Mohammad Mohsen Zaryab was still searching for somewhere to live in Kabul, where rental prices have soared along with an influx of Afghans expelled from neighboring countries.
More than 2.1 million Afghans have returned from Pakistan and Iran so far this year, according to the United Nations refugee agency. They join earlier rounds of mass expulsions from the neighboring countries, deported or driven out by fear of arrest.
Many of the returnees, like Zaryab, fled with their meagre belongings to Kabul, expecting the swelling city of eight million to offer the best prospects of finding work in a country where half the population lives below the poverty line.
Zaryab begged landlords to bring down prices for his family of eight, only to be told, “If you can’t pay, someone else will.”
The 47-year-old factory worker said he had expected when he returned in July to find more solidarity for Afghans coming “from far away with no home.”
