22 Afghans killed, 36 injured as truck carrying refugees returning from Pakistan crashes in Afghanistan

An overloaded truck carrying Afghan refugee families returning from neighbouring Pakistan overturned on a highway in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, killing at least 22 people and injuring about 36 others, most of them women and children, said local Afghan officials.

Emergency responders transported the wounded passengers to nearby medical facilities in Nangarhar Province, where several passengers remain in critical condition.

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The accident occurred near the Surkhakan intersection in the Qarghayi district of Laghman Province on the Kabul–Jalalabad highway, a key route linking the Afghan capital with the Torkham border crossing into Pakistan.

The earlier death toll of 18 has risen to 22 after several victims succumbed to their injuries in hospital, said Nangarhar’s provincial public health director Mawlawi Aminullah Sharif.

The passengers were among thousands of Afghans returning from Pakistan, which is pursuing a crackdown on migrants from across the border. The dead included 12 children and five women.

The truck fell into a ditch after the driver fell asleep.

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The passengers were among thousands of Afghans who recently returned from Pakistan, which launched a crackdown on migrants in 2023 and has since deported or pressured many to leave.

Iran also intensified expulsion of Afghan migrants around the same time. Since then, millions of Afghans have returned home from the two countries, including many who were born in Pakistan and had lived and worked there.

In a separate accident, a car fell off the road into a river in the eastern province of Nuristan on Friday night, injuring the driver and leaving four passengers missing, the governor’s office said Saturday. Rescue crews were searching for the missing four passengers, the office said.

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Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a post on X that he was “deeply saddened” by the tragedy and offered prayers “for the swift recovery of the injured.”

According to figures from the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration, more than 447,000 Afghans have returned from Pakistan since the start of 2026.

The returning refugees often travel in overcrowded commercial trucks due to a lack of affordable transport options.