EASO publishes a Country of Origin Information (COI) report on the Security Situation in Afghanistan

Today, the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) published a Country of Origin Information (COI) Report entitled ‘Afghanistan – security situation’. The report is a third update of the version first published in February 2015 ¹ and provides a comprehensive overview of the security situation in Afghanistan, information relevant for the protection status determination of Afghan asylum seekers. 

In the first ten months of 2017, more than 40,000 applications have been lodged in the EU+ by Afghans, ranking third in the top countries of origin in EU+ countries ². In addition, Afghan applications constitute the largest backlog of all countries of origin. At the end of October 2017, there were more than 64,000 asylum applications from Afghan nationals in the EU+ pending at first instance.  

The ‘Afghanistan security situation’ report provides a general description of the security situation in Afghanistan, covering the following topics: a brief context of the situation; actors in the conflict; security trends and armed confrontations; description of tactics and arms used; state ability to secure law and order; impact of the violence on the civilian population; and the geographical overview of the security situation. 

The report also provides a description of the security situation in each of the 34 provinces and Kabul City. In these chapters, a general overview of the province is given, followed by a background on the conflict and actors in the province, and recent security trends including data on violent incidents and qualitative information on the type of violence. Finally, a brief overview of violence-induced displacement is given. 

The terms of reference of this report were defined based on information needs identified by asylum policy experts in EU+ countries and UNHCR. The report presents information until 31 August 2017.

The report was co-drafted by EASO and researchers from national COI units in Belgium, Finland, France, Poland and Slovakia, as well as the Austrian Red Cross/ACCORD, in accordance with the EASO COI Report Methodology. The report was reviewed and commented upon by COI researchers from Austria, The Netherlands, and UNHCR.

It is EASO’s intention to continue to produce such reports on important countries of origin and to update them regularly in order to raise and harmonise COI standards in the EU and to further support the practical implementation of the Common European Asylum System.

Download Report [EN] 

Any further information may be obtained from the European Asylum Support Office on the following email address: press@easo.europa.eu.

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_{1 All reports are available via EASO’s website: /information-analysis/country-origin-information/country-reports  .
2 EU Member States plus Norway and Switzerland}