Impoverished Afghans are illegally selling their kidneys to repay debts and buy food. The selling of organs comes as the war-torn country grapples with one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises.
As millions of Afghans struggle just to afford food, some have turned to selling one of their last remaining resources: a healthy kidney. The costs can be devastating: One woman said her health has deteriorated since she sold a kidney for a modest sum that failed to clear her family's debts.
The prolonged closure of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border has brought cross-border trade to a standstill, leaving tens of thousands of people on both sides without work. It has also disrupted commercial activity and strained longstanding family and social ties.
Pakistani air strikes hit targets in Afghanistan's Kunar and Helmand provinces overnight on October 1. Pakistani authorities said they were targeting militants operating near the border, but Afghan witnesses said civilians were among the dead, including children.
Pakistan carried out a round of air strikes on October 1 on two Afghan provinces near the border based on "credible evidence" of militant activity in the area.
Afghan refugees being held at a camp in Qatar have been told it will be kept open for another nine months after a deadline for its closure passed, but they face continuing uncertainty over their fate amid an ongoing bar on entry to the United States.
Hundreds of Afghan medical students in Pakistan face expulsion, including women and students nearing graduation. Courts in several parts of the country have temporarily allowed them to stay and continue their studies, but their long-term future remains uncertain.
Thirteen people were killed and at least 35 others injured following a blast at a security checkpoint in Dera Ismail Khan, near the border between Pakistan's Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces.
A former US Marine has spent days trying to see his brother at a camp in Qatar holding Afghan refugees in limbo after plans to bring them to the United States were blocked by a presidential executive order. The camp is due to close on September 30, and the inmates don’t know what will happen next.
An Afghan migrant has told RFE/RL's Radio Azadi that his stepmother and four sisters died of thirst and hunger while attempting a dangerous journey to Iran after economic hardship forced the family to leave Afghanistan again.
At least 17 Afghans died of extreme dehydration in mid-September after crossing Iran through Pakistan, according to a human rights organization. Among them were a mother and her four daughters.
Work is now underway to the restore Afghanistan's Minaret of Jam, which experts say reflects a welcome departure from the icon-smashing rule of the Taliban of the 1990s. The change contrasts with the current Taliban rulers' draconian restrictions on other facets of life in the country.
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