Mediaboss Marketing

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) report, Afghanistan has the third-largest refugee population and the regions largest displaced population after the Taliban took control, with 2.7 million refugees scattered across 98 countries.

Following Syrian and Venezuelan refugees, Afghanistan has the largest displaced population, displaced internally or forced across the border, per UNHCRs report.

Pakistan and Iran continue to shelter more than 1.3 million and 780,000 registered Afghan refugees, respectively and are host to the majority of Afghan refugees.

The UNHCR report quoted UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi saying, Afghanistans displacement crisis is one of the largest and most protracted in UNHCRs seven-decade history. Were now seeing a third generation of Afghan children born in exile.

This report indicates that in the year 2021 alone, 108,000 Afghans fled to Pakistan, 59,000 to Europe, 27,000 to Iran, and 6,000 fled to Asia and the Pacific.

A minimum of 24 million Afghans require humanitarian relief as a result of hunger, the countrys economic meltdown, natural disasters including floods, earthquakes, droughts and famine, a lack of development aid, and the brutally cold winters.

Afghans and their host communities capacity for resilience is being tested to the breaking point as the humanitarian crisis persists.

Read more here:
With 'Third Generation of Afghan Children Born in Exile'; Afghanistan Becomes the Third-Largest Displaced Population - The Khaama Press News Agency -...

According to local Taliban officials in the southern Afghan province of Helmand, a father tortured and killed his six-year-old child.

The Talibans director of the Information and Culture Department in Helmand province, Hafiz Rashid Helmandi, stated that the child succumbed on Tuesday, July 26, under the fathers torture in the village of Qala Naw in the Khanashin district.

Taliban officials claimed that Siddiqullah, a man, occasionally tortured his children and that he had also allegedly killed another of his sons.

The offender has been detained and will be charged with the crime and put on trial, he continued.

With a significant increase in family violence and personal enmity, reports of domestic violence leading to homicides have soared in number.

Only about a month ago, a man killed nine members of his family including his pregnant wife and four children, in southwestern Afghanistan.

In addition, according to provincial Taliban officials in the province of Faryab, in northern Afghanistan, recently, a pregnant woman was fatally stabbed by her husband in Maimana.

Moreover, a man in the same province of Helmand used a knife to behead both his wife and their three-month-old infant.

See original here:
Child, 6, Tortured to Death by Father in Southern Afghanistan - The Khaama Press News Agency - The Khaama Press News Agency

The peoples that were under the influence of or ruled by the Hindu Sahi dynasty belonged to the territories of Kabulistan, Gandhara and parts of Northern Punjab. Kabulistan was what is currently known as the province of Kabul in present-day Afghanistan. Gandhara is the ancient name for the country that includes the valley of Peshawar in modern-day Pakistan. The parts of Punjab that were under Sahi influence are now a part of Punjab that currently belongs to Pakistan.

One country that was never conquered by the Sahis but was to play a big part in their history was Zabulistan. Zabulistan included the areas of modern-day Zabul and Ghazni provinces, located now in present-day Afghanistan.

The history of these lands is the stories of men and women that were destined to rule these lands, if not in their own name, then in the name of more powerful kings, these men were responsible for providing security, order and supporting local culture.

The history of these lands is a story of countless invasions, sometimes by generals and armies and at other times by the migration of whole tribes, migrating masses of men, women and children. The history of these lands is also one of competing religions, first Hinduism and then Buddhism. It is here that Buddhism, a native of India thrived, prospered and spread to other parts of the world. Then, after the decline of Buddhism, there was a resurgence of Hinduism under the Hindu Sahis before the arrival of Islam.

Though the history of these lands is ancient, for me, a good starting point would be a quick background and summary of the history of the lands before the Hindu Sahis. I choose to begin with the most famous of the conquerors of these lands, another childhood hero of mine, the great conqueror, Alexander.

A young Alexander the Great succeeded his father Philip II to the throne at the age of 20 in 336 BCE. Alexander commenced a great campaign to conquer the territories of the Persian empires. He began with Asia Minor, across the sea from Greece, continuing to campaign through the Levant and Syria, then west until he took Egypt. After this conquest he marched to the east and took the provinces of Assyria and Babylonia. After defeating the Persian king Darius III in the battle of Guagamela in 331 BCE, the whole of Persiaand the East fell to him.

Alexander then campaigned in central Asia, founding new cities, all named Alexandria, including modern Kandahar in Afghanistan, and Alexandria Eschate (The Furthest) in modern-day Tajikistan. The campaign took Alexander through Media, Parthia, Aria (West Afghanistan), Drangiana, Arachosia (South and Central Afghanistan), Bactria (North and Central Afghanistan) and Scythia.

He then turned to the Indian subcontinent. He invited the chieftains of the former satrapy of Gandhara to submit to his authority. The ruler of Taxila complied, but other chieftains of the hill tribes refused to submit.

Alexander himself campaigned in the Kunar Valley (Afghanistan), the Panjkora Valley in Upper Dir (modern-day Pakistan) and the Swat and Buner valleys.

Alexander crossed the Indus and fought and won the epic battle of the Hydaspes (Jhelum) in 326 BCE against King Porus, who ruled a region lying between the Jhelum and the Chenab. East of Porus kingdom, near the Ganges River, was the Nanda Empire of Magadha. The struggle with Porus had an impact on the courage of the Macedonians. Exhausted by years of campaigning, Alexanders army mutinied at the Hyphasis River (Beas) and refused to march further east.

Reluctantly, Alexander agreed and turned south, marching along the Indus. Most of the army marched with General Craterus into Iran. Alexanders admiral, Nearchus, took a fleet to explore the Persian Gulf while he led the rest back to Persia through the more difficult southern route, along the Gedrosian Desert and Makran.

When Alexander died, his son was still an infant. His generals and former companions wanted a bigger say in how the territories would be divided. This, inevitably, led to a civil war. The fate of the empire was decided at the Battle of Gaza in 312 BCE. When the spoils were divided, a young officer named Seleucus managed to obtain Persia and the east as his share, with his capital at Babylon.

Seleucus Nicator (358281 BCE) had been successful in his military career. He was reputed to have fought with distinction, though he had only fought in a junior role under Alexander and was not considered one of his close companions. By 302 BCE he had established his authority over the territories Alexander had conquered all the way up until the Jaxartes (modern-day Syr Arya river in Central Asia).

He was known to the Greeks as Sandracottus and was said to have met Alexander while the latter was in India in 326325 BCE. Under the guidance of his wily preceptor, Vishnugupta, better known as Chanakya or Kautilya, Chandragupta attacked the Macedonian garrison in the Indus Basin after the death of Alexander. After havingexterminated and overthrown the Nanda dynasty, he took the throne of Pataliputra (modern-day Patna).

Seleucus now set his designs to take back these territories in India. He marched against Chandragupta with the intention of attacking him, but he later reasoned against this and negotiated a treaty in 302 BCE. It is more likely that the Greeks were defeated as the subsequent treaty was quite one-sided, favouring the Indians. This treaty led to peace and terms that included a matrimonial alliance between the two kings.

Some believe that this meant Chandragupta marrying the daughter of Seleucus. Others interpret it to mean that the treaty may have recognised marriages between the subjects of the two kingdoms. Whether the marriage did take place or not, we do not read of the Mauryans and Greeks in conflict after this. The treaty also recognised Mauryan suzerainty over Paropamisadae and Arachosia. What the Greeks received in return were 500 elephants and a large amount of gold.

The elephants obtained from the Indian king were a valuable weapon that Seleucus could now use in his continued wars against the remaining successors.

The improved relations allowed Seleucus to send an envoy called Megasthenes to the court of the Mauryas in Pataliputra. Megasthenes subsequently became a great source of information for the history of India.

Asoka expanded the Mauryan empire to its greatest extent. It included modern-day Afghanistan in the west and stretched all the way east to include what is now Bangladesh. In fact, for one of the few times in Indias history, nearly the whole of the subcontinent of India was united as one political entity (excluding parts of present-day Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala). The capital continued to be Pataliputra, but Asoka maintained provincial capitals at Taxila and Ujjain.

Excerpted with permission from Forgotten Kings: The Story of the Hindu Sahi Dynasty, Changez Jan, Simon & Schuster India,

Excerpt from:
This book recounts the near-forgotten tale of the Hindu Sahi kingdom in present day Afghanistan - Scroll.in

Pashtana Durrani:

Oh, yes, definitely.

I'm most time most of the time. I'm worried about the fact that, what if somebody follows them? What if all this number of girls are going there, what if somebody follows them? What if somebody just raids the school? It has always been a concern.

I talk to the teachers most of the time. Sometimes, they do tell me, oh, the Da'esh is going to attack this particular place. And I'm like, what if the Taliban do the same thing?

So it's always a conflict. At the same time, when you talk to the students, they have lost everything. Within the year, I was talking to my students. She was telling me the Afghanistan you got educated in and the Afghanistan I'm getting educated in are two different Afghanistans. They it's not the same of understand that you left.

And, at the same time, you feel sorry for the fact that they could have had a better future, better than ours, but they don't.

Read the original:
Afghan women, girls push for education in the face of Taliban ...

ISLAMABAD -- Hundreds of people have been killed in Afghanistan since the Taliban overran the country nearly a year ago, even though security on the whole has improved since then, the United Nations said in a report Wednesday.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan also highlighted the poor situation of women and girls since the Taliban takeover and how they have been stripped of many of their human rights under Afghanistan's current rulers.

It is beyond time for all Afghans to be able to live in peace and rebuild their lives after 20 years of armed conflict. Our monitoring reveals that despite the improved security situation since 15 August, the people of Afghanistan, in particular women and girls, are deprived of the full enjoyment of their human rights, said Markus Potzel, deputy special representative of the Secretary-General for Afghanistan.

The report said as many as 700 people have been killed and 1,400 wounded since mid-August 2021, when the Taliban overran the Afghan capital of Kabul as the United States and NATO were in the final weeks of their withdrawal from the country.

The majority of those casualties were linked to attacks by the Islamic State group's affiliate in the country, a bitter rival of the Taliban which has targeted ethnic and religious minority communities in places where they go to school, worship and go about their daily lives.

Afghanistan has seen persistent bombings and other attacks on civilians, often targeting the mainly Shiite Muslim ethnic Hazara minority. Most of the attacks have been claimed by the Islamic State groups affiliate in the country.

The report added that the Taliban have made clear their position on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly, freedom of expression and freedom of opinion.

They have limited dissent by cracking down on protests and curbing media freedoms, including by arbitrarily arresting journalists, protestors and civil society activists and issuing restrictions on media outlets.

The report catalogued human rights violations affecting 173 journalists and media workers, 163 of which were attributed to the de facto authorities. Among these were 122 instances of arbitrary arrest and detention, 58 instances of ill-treatment, 33 instances of threats and intimidation and 12 instances of incommunicado detention.

Six journalists were also killed since August, 2021, including five by self-identified Islamic State affiliates and one by unknown perpetrators.

The right to the freedoms of peaceful assembly, expression and opinion are necessary for the development and progression of a nation, said Fiona Frazer, the U.N.s human rights representative in Afghanistan.

"They allow meaningful debate to flourish, also benefiting those who govern by allowing them to better understand the issues and problems facing the population, she added.

The U.N. also said an amnesty for former government officials the Taliban announced last year has not been consistently upheld. Frazer said the U.N. recorded 160 extrajudicial killings and 178 arrests of former government and military officials.

The report said human rights violations must be investigated by the authorities, perpetrators held accountable, and incidents should be prevented from reoccurring in the future.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid called the U.N. report baseless and propaganda and its findings not true.

Arbitrary arrests and killings are not allowed in the country and if anyone commits such crimes, they will be considered guilty and face legal action, he added.

After their takeover last year, the Taliban quickly started enforcing a sharply tougher line, harking back to similar radical measures when the Taliban last ruled the country, from 1996 to 2001.

They issued edicts requiring women to cover their faces except for their eyes in public, including women presenters on TV, and banned girls from attending school past the sixth grade.

The U.N. report added that the erosion of womens rights has been one of the most notable aspects of the de facto administration to date. Since August, women and girls have progressively had their rights to fully participate in education, the workplace and other aspects of public and daily life restricted and in many cases completely taken away.

The decision not to allow girls to return to secondary school means that a generation of girls will not complete their full 12 years of basic education, the U.N. said.

The education and participation of women and girls in public life is fundamental to any modern society. The relegation of women and girls to the home denies Afghanistan the benefit of the significant contributions they have to offer. Education for all is not only a basic human right, it is the key to progress and development of a nation, said Potzel, the U.N. envoy.

During the previous Taliban rule in Afghanistan, they subjected women to overwhelming restrictions, banning them from education and participation in public life and requiring them to wear the all-encompassing burqa.

The rest is here:
UN slams killings, rights abuses under Afghanistan's Taliban - ABC News