Afghan and Pakistani troops continue to fight fiercely along their shared border, marking eleven days of ongoing clashes between the neighboring countries. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) continues to verify and record incidents of civilian casualties in Afghanistan resulting from the cross-border conflict.
From late evening on February 26 until Thursday of this week, UNAMA verified and recorded a total of 185 Afghan civilian casualties, including 56 deaths and 129 injuries due to indirect fire and aerial attacks. According to the mission, 55 percent of the recorded civilian casualties during this period were women and children.
The UN continues to call on all parties to the conflict to comply with their obligations under international humanitarian law, particularly to protect civilians, including aid workers, and civilian infrastructure.
Last week, in a major escalation, Pakistan began carrying out airstrikes and ground attacks on targets inside Afghanistan, further aggravating its neighbor's severe humanitarian and human rights crises. Despite a ceasefire declared last October, sporadic clashes have been ongoing along the border for months.
Pakistan's airstrikes on Afghanistan follow a series of deadly incidents in Pakistan this year, including an assault on a checkpoint in Bajaur, suicide bombings at a Shi’a mosque in Islamabad and at a wedding ceremony in Dera Ismail Khan, and other attacks allegedly committed by armed groups such as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
Both sides accuse the other of supporting militants and initiating hostilities. Some analysts describe the situation as a state of war between Pakistan and the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Last week, Pakistan’s defense minister said that his country was now engaged in "open war" with Afghanistan.
On Friday, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) reported that approximately 115,000 people have been internally displaced in Afghanistan and around 3,000 in Pakistan due to the ongoing conflict along the border.
„The situation in Afghanistan is already fragile and any further large-scale returns of Afghan refugees will put immense pressure on basic services and host communities,” said UNHCR official Ayaki Ito in Geneva on Friday in a media briefing.
Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR), also addressed the plight of people in Afghanistan during the briefing. According to OHCHR, at least two schools have reportedly been struck, while over 100 have been closed.
“In Pakistan as well, shelling and other fire has forced people to flee their homes and civilians on both sides of this border are now having to flee from airstrikes, heavy artillery fire, mortar shelling and gunfire,” she said.
For his part, Volker TĂĽrk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, implored the Pakistani military and the de facto Afghan security forces to immediately cease fighting and prioritize helping the millions who depend on aid and whose lives have been plagued by violence and misery for so long.
“As a result of the violence, humanitarian assistance is unable to reach many of those desperately in need. This is piling misery on misery,” he said.
“The cycle of retaliation and violence only deepens the suffering of the wider population,” Türk said.
He urged both Afghanistan and Pakistan to de-escalate and address their respective security issues through "dialogue, negotiation, and mutual cooperation."
The latest escalation comes after years of conflict, poverty, and natural disasters, such as droughts and earthquakes, left nearly half of the population—almost 22 million people—in need of humanitarian assistance. Among those in need are over 11.6 million children.
In recent years, Afghanistan has seen huge numbers of its citizens — estimated at 2.7 million in 2025 — forced to return from neighboring countries, including Pakistan. Millions of Afghans live in extreme poverty, lacking adequate food, clean water, and access to education, healthcare, and employment.
The severe humanitarian crisis is fueled by worsening food insecurity, recurring shocks such as climate-driven droughts and floods, large-scale influxes of returnees, frequent earthquakes, multiple disease outbreaks, and severe protection risks, especially for women and girls. The scale and severity of hunger and malnutrition in Afghanistan are worsening.
According to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis, only 2.7 percent of Afghanistan’s population receives food assistance. Meanwhile, an estimated 17.4 million people — over a third of the population — are projected to face crisis levels of hunger (IPC Phase 3) or worse between November 2025 and March 2026. This includes 4.7 million people facing emergency levels of hunger (IPC Phase 4).
The UN emphasizes that more funding is urgently needed. As of today, only 11 percent — or $181 million — of the US$1.7 billion required to implement this year's Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan, which aims to assist 17.5 million people, has been received.