Saturday, 28 August 2021 (YJC)_ The United Nations has said it expects up to half a million more Afghan refugees by the end of 2021.
The United Nations has said it was bracing for a possible exodus from violence-ravaged Afghanistan of up to half a million more refugees by the end of 2021.
The organisation said that there currently was not a flood of people fleeing across Afghanistan's borders, but added it was laying contingency plans for that to change as the country's crisis deepens.
"The humanitarian emergency currently is inside Afghanistan," Kelly Clements, the deputy high commissioner of the UNHCR, told reporters.
But "this is obviously a really dynamic situation," she said, explaining that the UNHCR was planning for a variety of different scenarios, including a mass exodus.
"We are preparing for around 500,000 new refugees in the region. This is a worst-case scenario," she said.
She stressed in particular the need to boost support for neighbouring countries that already host more than 2.2 million Afghan refugees, and which could soon see the fresh influx.
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