Environmental Factors Driving Migrants into Afghanistan’s Cities
Each day, 400 people are displaced within Afghanistan, and the total number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) within the country recently exceeded 500,000. Drawn by the perceived economic opportunities and security, most rural families migrate to Afghanistan's national and provincial capitals. In fact, more than 90 percent of IDPs living in or around Kabul, Kandahar, and Herat originated from rural areas. According to a UN Refugee Agency survey (conducted in May 2011) displacement within Afghanistan is caused predominately by two factors: (1) a lack of security in rural settings (cited by 65.13 percent of survey participants in Kabul), and (2) a lack of available arable land (cited by 60.53 percent of participants).
Read the Report by Zachary Weiss