Welcome to Foreign Policy’s South Asia Brief.
The highlights this week: Afghanistan grapples with a refugee crisis as Iran rapidly expels tens of thousands of people, a Bangladeshi Air Force plane crash kills at least 31 people, and the Maldives hosts Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a guest of honor at its independence day festivities.
Afghanistan’s Intensifying Crisis
A rapidly intensifying refugee crisis is playing out along Iran’s border with Afghanistan. More than 700,000 Afghans returned to Afghanistan from Iran during the first six months of the year, according to United Nations figures. But that figure increased dramatically in the last few weeks, as Iran expels tens of thousands of Afghans.
More than 500,000 Afghans were driven out of Iran between June 24 and July 9. By mid-July, the New York Times reported that the number of Afghans who had left Iran in 2025 had mushroomed to 1.4 million, most of them forcibly returned; it may reach 4 million by the end of the year. Nearly 20,000 people are now entering Afghanistan from Iran every day.
Most of those on the move were undocumented refugees in Iran, though some of those expelled reportedly had legal status. Their plight represents a complex humanitarian emergency.
Nonetheless, it has clear drivers. Earlier this year, economic stress prompted Tehran’s expulsion orders. In recent weeks, Iranian officials have justified the move by baselessly accusing Afghan refugees of spying for Israel during the country’s recent war with Iran. The number of people leaving Iran for Afghanistan picked up dramatically after the war ended on June 24.
Afghanistan has now experienced three refugee crises in the last decade, but they have often been overshadowed by other global emergencies.
In 2015, intensifying conflict in Afghanistan prompted massive outmigration—at the height of the Syrian refugee crisis. In February 2022, just months after the Taliban returned to power, spawning another refugee crisis, Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. And the current crisis is unfolding amid the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.
However, it is critical that the world not look away now. The New York Times dispatch from the Iran-Afghanistan border presents a heartbreaking picture. Thousands of people are arriving in Afghanistan daily amid scorching heat—many with no home, job, or connections in the country. The returnees include women and girls who fled after the Taliban’s return and now can’t work or go to school.
In March, UNICEF estimated that 23 million Afghans, more than 50 percent of the population, will require humanitarian aid this year—and that was before most of the expulsions from Iran began. In May, the U.N. Development Program estimated that 97 percent of Afghans live below the poverty line and 69 percent are unemployed. Acute public health crises are raging.
But since 2021 international humanitarian aid to Afghanistan has plummeted, largely because of the return of the Taliban—with their many U.N.-sanctioned leaders—to the government in Kabul and the eruption of crises elsewhere. The U.N., one of the only consistent sources of aid to Afghanistan, has raised only 22 percent of its humanitarian assistance needs for this year.
The Taliban regime may boast of its ability to accommodate the returnees from Iran, but the scale and speed of the inflows represent a herculean challenge that will exacerbate Afghanistan’s economic and humanitarian stress. Taliban leaders may try to leverage their friendly ties and shared concerns with Iran to press it to slow down the rate of expulsions. But Tehran so far appears unwilling to soften its stance.
Unfortunately, the crisis could get even worse. Pakistan—another top destination for Afghan refugees—is also forcing people to return to Afghanistan, albeit at a slower rate. So is the United Arab Emirates, despite a pledge from U.S. President Donald Trump to protect the many Afghans in the UAE who worked for the U.S. military.
Far too many people are being forced to return to a country where they don’t want to be—and which is ill-prepared to receive them.
What We’re Following
Deadly plane crash in Bangladesh. South Asia has been hit with another air tragedy, this time in Bangladesh, where on Monday an air force jet on a training mission crashed into a private school campus in Dhaka, killing at least 31 people and wounding more, most of them students. Many of those killed and injured are young children.
The crash marks the deadliest-ever tragedy of its kind in Bangladesh, which declared a day of mourning on Tuesday. The military said that a “technical malfunction” led to the crash, and an air force committee is expected to investigate. But some Bangladeshis are unhappy with the interim government’s initial handling of the tragedy.
Hundreds of students protested in Dhaka on Tuesday, some breaching barricades at government facilities. They called for the country to stop using “outdated” planes in training missions and demanded more information about the crash victims. Deliveries of the China-made F-7 jet involved in the crash arrived in Bangladesh in 2013.
Modi in the Maldives. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit the Maldives on Friday and Saturday, following a trip to the United Kingdom to ink a new trade deal. Modi is the guest of honor for the Maldives’ July 26 independence day festivities and will be the first foreign head of government invited to the island state since President Mohamed Muizzu took office in 2023.
India and the Maldives are expected to discuss cooperation around economics, maritime security, and renewable energy. They are also reportedly negotiating a new free trade agreement.
This marks a shift from the start of Muizzu’s term, when bilateral relations with India were fraught with tensions. Muizzu ran on a pledge to expel the modest Indian military presence from the Maldives, which he fulfilled. He also signed new defense deals with China, and when several Maldives officials insulted Modi on social media, it prompted many Indians to call for a tourism boycott.
But the India-Maldives relationship was never doomed. Muizzu’s goal was not to discard India, but rather to achieve more balance in the Maldives’ relations with key players in the region. India enjoys leverage—especially the large amount of economic assistance it provides to the Maldives—that ensures a committed bilateral partnership.
Pakistan’s diplomacy. Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar is in the United States this week for U.N. engagements in New York, where he currently holds the rotating presidency of the U.N. Security Council, and meetings with Trump administration officials in Washington. His visit comes as Islamabad—despite economic stress and political tensions at home—has enjoyed foreign-policy achievements.
In recent weeks, Pakistan has eased serious tensions with Afghanistan; boosted long-moribund ties with Bangladesh; and balanced relations with rival powers, including China, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United States. Dar’s visit to Washington is part of an unexpected boost for U.S.-Pakistan relations, following Trump hosting Pakistani Army chief Asim Munir at the White House in June.
Dar may not entirely escape his government’s domestic challenges: Pakistani American supporters of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan sometimes stage protests against visiting Pakistani officials.
Under the Radar
It’s been a challenging couple of months for U.S.-India relations. To New Delhi’s chagrin, Trump has offered to mediate the Kashmir dispute and repeatedly claimed to have ended the May conflict between India and Pakistan. He has threatened to slap tariffs on BRICS members, including India, and Washington is making tough demands in ongoing trade talks.
Furthermore, the U.S. State Department issued a rare travel advisory for India, and the Trump administration has signaled a strong desire to strengthen ties with Pakistan. This is all why an announcement from the Indian Army that three U.S. Apache attack helicopters had arrived in the country on Tuesday offers a breath of fresh air.
The news offers a useful lesson for the U.S.-India relationship: Patience is a virtue. The two countries finalized a deal to send the helicopters to India in 2020, but supply chain disruptions and other delays pushed the delivery date more than a year beyond schedule. The powerful Apaches will bolster India’s air capacities and boost the bilateral defense partnership.
The delivery of the helicopters can rekindle hopes that despite the recent bumps for U.S.-India ties, the relationship can regain its footing.
FP’s Most Read This Week
- Biden’s Team Lied About Gaza. It’s Time to Hold Them Accountable. by Matthew Duss
- The U.S. Can No Longer Stave Off Competition From China by Howard W. French
- Why Trump Keeps Betraying His Base by Stephen M. Walt
Regional Voices
A Kuensel editorial considers whether Bhutan needs a more robust political opposition: “Our political landscape has often been characterized by a unique approach to opposition, one where silence is frequently equated with wisdom and maturity. But the expectation has been that the opposition will intervene at the opportune moment, for the most righteous causes.”
In Prothom Alo, education expert Fariha Nowrin discusses the misplaced potential of Bangladeshi youth: “The truth is, many of our brightest students never get to realize their own brilliance. Why? Because no one told them how far they could go; because their parents were unaware of the academic roadmaps that lead to the best institutions, best scholarships, and the best pathways to the beaming tomorrow,” she argues.
In the Express Tribune, professor and writer M. Nadeem Nadir laments how the deaths of two Pakistani celebrities, Ayesha Khan and Humaira Asghar, went unnoticed for so long: “The tragic deaths … have exposed the ugly face of our connectivity and sociability in the virtual world,” he writes. “[S]ocial media has paradoxically turned man into an island.”