Afghanistan: Humanitarian Access Snapshot (May 2025)

In May 2025, the operational environment in Afghanistan remained challenging, with a total of 98[1] access incidents reported by humanitarian partners across various regions. This represents a 63 per cent increase compared to the previous month, but a 21 per cent decrease compared to the same period last year, highlighting the ongoing challenges faced by humanitarian partners in delivering aid effectively and efficiently. The highest number of incidents recorded in the Central Region with 33 incidents, followed by the Southern Region with 22 incidents and the Central Highland Region with 11 incidents. These incidents primarily involved interference in implementation of humanitarian activities, restrictions on the movement of agencies, personnel or goods within the country, and violence against humanitarian personnel, assets and facilities. As a result, 37 activities across various regions were temporarily suspended. The sectors most affected included Food Security and Agriculture, Health and Education.

In May, interference in implementation of humanitarian activities remained the main challenge, with 68 incidents recorded, accounting for 69 per cent of the overall incidents. Compared to the previous month, the number of interference incidents increased by 55 per cent, with 99 per cent of these incidents attributed to de facto authorities. These interference incidents included aid confiscation (2), delays and issues with Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signing (16), interference in programming (22), interference in staff recruitment (5), requests for staff lists and sensitive data (15), restrictions on the participation of women humanitarian workers (4) and restrictions on women’s services/assistance (4).

Furthermore, **movement restrictions within the country have made it more difficult to deliver humanitarian assistance, with seven incidents recorded in May** that shows an increase compared to the four incidents reported in April. These incidents included demands for additional movement approvals, restrictions on female staff to participate in humanitarian activities and various challenges encountered at checkpoints.

Violence against humanitarian personnel, assets and facilities experienced a notable increase from nine incidents in the previous month to 12 incidents in May. These include six cases of detention in which 22 humanitarian staff (16 men and six women) detained, 13 cases of threats against humanitarian staff specifically female staff who were threatened not to report to offices and an attack to humanitarian staff in which one staff member was killed and two were injured. These incidents persistently disrupted the operational environment, where the safety and security of humanitarian personnel are at risk.

In May, 27 out of 98 reported incidents had gender-related aspects. The main reason behind these incidents is continued enforcement of directives, restricting women's participation in humanitarian work. These gender-related incidents included demands for mahram details and personal information of female staff and bans on the recruitment of women. Several humanitarian partners reported that female staff received threats, including from unidentified individuals who warned of harm or death if they returned to work. These incidents disrupted the delivery of essential services to targeted female beneficiaries and compromised the safety of female aid workers.

[1] The access incidents are reported to the Access Monitoring and Reporting Framework (AMRF) either directly by humanitarian partners to OCHA or through the cluster coordinators and working group, and UNDSS.