Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vivamus mauris turpis, auctor eu tincidunt sit amet, mattis id enim. Aenean quis feugiat justo, vel rutrum enim. Maecenas aliquet non enim vitae congue. Nulla massa nunc, ultrices ac ex quis, condimentum commodo leo. Proin tincidunt nisl dui, vel luctus lacus viverra a. Proin vitae quam id tortor accumsan laoreet sed quis elit. Nulla vitae risus mollis, pellentesque tellus nec, consequat sapien. Vestibulum vel lacus aliquam neque fermentum vestibulum non sit amet quam. Nulla neque leo, viverra non lacinia id, tristique in enim. Ut posuere vitae ante ac condimentum. Aliquam sit amet ligula laoreet, hendrerit eros at, feugiat eros.

Donec eu libero nisi. Vestibulum scelerisque orci eget lacinia mollis. Pellentesque feugiat sagittis nulla, at ornare nulla vestibulum sit amet. Pellentesque mattis mauris lorem, vel euismod metus posuere a. Nam at ligula nisi. Ut mollis fringilla justo, ac porttitor velit tempor quis. Pellentesque accumsan, elit non vehicula feugiat, magna magna molestie eros, a lobortis libero ligula ac diam.

small_https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1490481651871-ab68de25d43d?ixid=MnwxMjA3fDB8MHxwaG90by1wYWdlfHx8fGVufDB8fHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&auto=format&fit=crop&w=750&q=80

thumbnail_https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1490481651871-ab68de25d43d?ixid=MnwxMjA3fDB8MHxwaG90by1wYWdlfHx8fGVufDB8fHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&auto=format&fit=crop&w=750&q=80

https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1490481651871-ab68de25d43d?ixid=MnwxMjA3fDB8MHxwaG90by1wYWdlfHx8fGVufDB8fHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&auto=format&fit=crop&w=750&q=80

There is no one who loves pain itself, who seeks after it and wants to have it, simply because it is pain

thumbnail_https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1516762689617-e1cffcef479d?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&ixid=MnwxMjA3fDB8MHxwaG90by1wYWdlfHx8fGVufDB8fHx8&auto=format&fit=crop&w=354&q=80

https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1516762689617-e1cffcef479d?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&ixid=MnwxMjA3fDB8MHxwaG90by1wYWdlfHx8fGVufDB8fHx8&auto=format&fit=crop&w=354&q=80

new item is in the way

My family lives in a small house. It’s simple but pretty. It has a large garden. I like to work in the garden but my sister hates to work in the garden. She prefers to read. She reads in the morning, in the afternoon and at night.

I give all of the vegetables to mom and dad. They like to cook in our small kitchen. I eat any vegetable but my sister eats only a few.

My family always eats breakfast and dinner together. We talk. We laugh. Then my sister washes the dishes.

At night dad likes to listen to music. Mom works on the computer. I watch television. And my sister reads.

Soon we go to bed. My parents go to bed late but my sister and I go to bed early. I’m ready to go to sleep but my sister wants to keep reading

small_https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1561525140-c2a4cc68e4bd?ixid=MnwxMjA3fDB8MHxwaG90by1wYWdlfHx8fGVufDB8fHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&auto=format&fit=crop&w=750&q=80

thumbnail_https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1561525140-c2a4cc68e4bd?ixid=MnwxMjA3fDB8MHxwaG90by1wYWdlfHx8fGVufDB8fHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&auto=format&fit=crop&w=750&q=80

https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1561525140-c2a4cc68e4bd?ixid=MnwxMjA3fDB8MHxwaG90by1wYWdlfHx8fGVufDB8fHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&auto=format&fit=crop&w=750&q=80

My family at home

If you're wondering why families are important to individuals, there are a number of reasons. The definition of family is one that seems to change with the times, but it usually includes a group of people related to each other and living together. Like many social relationships, strong bonds with family members can have great benefits for society and individuals.

Why Are Families Important to Individuals?
Family support is important to individuals for a variety of reasons, most of which are related to your personal well-being. Family is important to individuals because it provides benefits to your physical, emotional, and mental health that can't be found anywhere else.

small_https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1516013474378-d6498f0d1434?ixid=MnwxMjA3fDB8MHxwaG90by1wYWdlfHx8fGVufDB8fHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&auto=format&fit=crop&w=750&q=80

thumbnail_https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1516013474378-d6498f0d1434?ixid=MnwxMjA3fDB8MHxwaG90by1wYWdlfHx8fGVufDB8fHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&auto=format&fit=crop&w=750&q=80

https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1516013474378-d6498f0d1434?ixid=MnwxMjA3fDB8MHxwaG90by1wYWdlfHx8fGVufDB8fHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&auto=format&fit=crop&w=750&q=80

Why Is Family Important

To find out the true production cost of a garment is a tortuous process. Here is what you need to know to buy clothes with a clear conscience

The Zara R-E-S-P-E-C-T hoodie, for which researchers attempted to unpick the labour costs involved.
The Zara R-E-S-P-E-C-T hoodie, for which researchers attempted to unpick the labour costs involved. Photograph: Public Eye/Noura Gauper
Hannah Marriott
Hannah Marriott
@maid_marriott
Thu 29 Jul 2021 06.00 BST
What is the true cost of a Zara hoodie? In April 2019, David Hachfeld of the Swiss NGO Public Eye, along with a team of researchers and the Clean Clothes Campaign, attempted to find out. They chose to analyse a black, oversized top from Zara’s flagship Join Life sustainability line, which was printed with lyrics made famous by Aretha Franklin: “R-E-S-P-E-C-T: find out what it means to me”. It was an apt choice, because the idea was to work out whether any respect had been paid to the workers involved in the garment’s production, and how much of the hoodie’s average retail price, €26.66 (£22.70), went into their pockets.

This was no simple assignment. It took several people six months, involved badgering Zara’s parent company, Inditex, over email, slowly getting limited information in return, and interviewing dozens of sources on the ground in Izmir, Turkey, where the garment was made. The researchers analysed financial results and trading data, and consulted with experts in pricing and production. It was, Hachfeld says on the phone, with dry understatement, “quite a huge project”.

Their research suggested that the biggest chunk of the hoodie’s retail price – an estimated €10.26 – went back into Zara, to cover retail space and staff wages. The next biggest slice, after VAT at €4.44, was profit for Inditex/Zara, at €4.20. Their research suggested that the textile factory in Izmir received just €1.53 for cutting the material, sewing, packing and attaching the labels, with €1.10 of that being paid to the garment workers for the 30-minute job of putting the hoodie together. The report concluded that workers could not have received anything like a living wage, which the Clean Clothes Campaign defined, at the time the report was released, as a gross hourly wage of €6.19.

When the research was covered by the media at the time, Zara said the report was “based on erroneous premises and inaccurate reporting”, that the €7.76 sourcing price was wrong and that the workers were “paid more than the amounts mentioned in Public Eye’s report”. But at the time and when I contacted Zara for this article, the company declined to set out in greater detail where the research was inaccurate.

Workers in a small garment factory in Istanbul
Workers in a small garment factory in Istanbul. Photograph: NurPhoto/Getty Images
What is clear is that trying to find out the true production cost of a garment is a tortuous and potentially fruitless process – even when assessing a major high street retailer’s flagship “sustainability” line.

Hachfeld points out that Zara is by no means uniquely opaque. It is doing more than many clothing brands and has long-term commitments in place to work towards living wages. “They are launching initiatives and consultations with trade unions. But the question remains: when will they deliver on it?” he says. Vanishingly few retailers guarantee living wages across their vast, complex supply chains. According to the not-for-profit group Fashion Revolution, only two of the world’s 250 largest fashion brands (OVS and Patagonia) disclose how many of their workers are paid a living wage – despite the kind of resources that make billionaires of founders. Forbes estimates that Zara’s founder, Amancio Ortega, is worth $77bn (£55bn) and that H&M’s founder, Stefan Persson, is worth $21.3bn; the Sunday Times puts the wealth of Boohoo’s co-founder, Mahmud Kamani, at £1.4bn.

Throughout fashion, the numbers just don’t add up. High-street clothing has been getting cheaper and cheaper for decades. A major reason why, according to Gordon Renouf, the CEO of the fashion ethics comparison app Good on You, is that so many western brands have “moved from onshore production 40 years ago to larger offshore production”. Often, the countries they have chosen have “much lower wage costs, weaker labour movements and laxer environmental regulations”. Of course, we know all this, but we have also become accustomed to reaping the benefits. Our perception of what clothing should cost – and how much of it we need – has shifted.

In 1970, for example, the average British household spent 7% of its annual income on clothing. This had fallen to 5.9% by 2020. Even though we are spending less proportionally, we tend to own more clothes. According to the UN, the average consumer buys 60% more pieces of clothing – with half the lifespan – than they did 15 years ago. Meanwhile, fashion is getting cheaper: super-fast brands such as Shein (which sells tie-dye crop tops for £1.49) and Alibaba (vest tops for $2.20), have boomed online, making high-street brands look slow-moving and expensive by comparison.

But the correlation between price and ethics is knotty, to say the least. The conversation about sustainable fashion tends to be dominated by expensive designer brands: at Stella McCartney, for example, a wool-cotton jumper costs £925; at Another Tomorrow, each $520 sustainable viscose carbon-offset scarf neck blouse features a QR code in the label that outlines every stage of its “provenance journey”.

On the high street, many who proudly opt out of shopping at Primark or Boohoo for ethical reasons may be unaware that most reassuringly mid-priced brands don’t guarantee workers living wages or produce clothing without using environmentally harmful materials. A garment’s price is often more about aspiration and customer expectation than the cost of production. Hachfeld points out that the Zara hoodie was priced higher in Switzerland (CHF 45.90; €39.57), where Zara is positioned as a mid-range brand, than in Spain (€25.95), where it is perceived as more mainstream and affordable.

Another Tomorrow scar-neck blouse.
‘Provenance journey’ ... Another Tomorrow scarf neck blouse.
Online, debates about the price of clothing can get heated. The sustainable-fashion writer Aja Barber, for example, uses the phrase “exploitation prices” to refer to very cheap clothes, such as the 8p bikini offered by the Boohoo brand Pretty Little Thing last autumn. “Either the company or the garment worker is taking the hit, and most likely it’s not the company, because that wouldn’t be a profitable business model,” she says.

Barber has a personal threshold in mind when she buys an item. “Any time a dress is under £50, you really need to break down the labour on it,” she says. “Think about what you get paid hourly – think, could a person make this dress in three hours?” She doesn’t base this calculation on local wages in the global south, either, which are so much lower “because of years of colonialism and oppression”. She buys new clothes infrequently and tries to avoid polyester, which is made with fossil fuels and generally used in garments to make them cheaper.

Barber gets annoyed by the accusations of snobbery that ripple through social media when anyone criticises super-cheap brands. Largely, she says, these comments come from middle-class people “who want to participate in the system and not feel bad about it”. In her view, fast fashion is propped up not by those with very low disposable incomes, but by middle-class overconsumption.

The only way to tell if a garment has been ethically produced is by combing through the details on the manufacturer’s website (although many brands give little or no information) and checking out its rating on Good on You, which compares fashion brands on the basis of their impact on the planet, people and animals. Even among brands that have launched with sustainability as their USP, greenwashing is rife. Renouf warns against those that talk vaguely about being “natural” and “fair”, or bang on about recycled packaging, without giving details about, say, the materials they use or whether they engage with unions in their factories.

For the fashion retailer Sam Mabley, the idea that fashion can be ethical only if it is expensive is a myth. Mabley runs a sustainable fashion store in Bristol; he thought it was a shame that he was selling so many ethical T-shirts at around the £30 price point. Usually, he says, such T-shirts are created in small batches, by “cool indie brands who do printed designs – a lot of the work is in the design”. He decided to invert that business model, ramping up the scale in order to get bigger discounts from suppliers and creating plain, organic cotton, ethically produced Ts in black and white for £7.99. With just a month of social media promotion, he secured 4,000 orders.

A model wears a Yes Friends T-shirt by Sam Mabley
‘Buying power’ ... a Yes Friends T-shirt by Sam Mabley.
He believes it would be fairly easy for fast-fashion brands to use their buying power to “drive change for millions of workers around the world” and guarantee their factories paid living wages, without drastically affecting their margins. He is not alone in this view: Jenny Hulme, the head of buying at the sustainable fashion mainstay People Tree, believes ethical production is necessary and possible in every part of the market. “If you order in big volumes, it does reduce price – if a company really wants to improve, it can,” she says.

The reality of high-street clothes shopping is still very far from this ideal. Apart from a few “sustainable” lines produced by the big fast-fashion brands – which I am loath to recommend, because of so many accusations of greenwashing – it is almost impossible to find new, ethical clothing at rock-bottom prices, because the business models that have enabled clothing to get this cheap rely on inexpensive, environmentally damaging fabrics and very low wages.

That may leave anyone wanting to dress ethically on a high-street purse feeling out of options, although Renouf points out that buying better is possible at every budget. That is why, he says, Good on You aims to “provide ratings for as many brands as possible, rather than simply promoting the most sustainable brands”. You could, for example, move from an ultra-rapid fashion brand to a more engaged high-street fast-fashion brand, which might not cost much more, but still could constitute progress.

Buying fewer, but better-quality, items might save you money overall and is the most consistent advice you will hear from fashion campaigners. “Buy the best quality that you can afford, perhaps in end-of-season sales or by buying a thick jumper in the middle of summer to wear the next winter,” says Hulme.

Stepping out of the trend cycle, and avoiding brands that trade on planned obsolescence, is another avenue to explore. For example, Patrick Grant, a judge on the BBC’s The Great British Sewing Bee, explains that his Community Clothing brand aims to give shoppers more bang for their buck by stocking basics rather than continually designing new collections (it also does without retail space and marketing). Working to slimmer margins means he can invest in good fabric, but keep prices fairly low: his £49 hoodies are made from 470g 100% loopback cotton, a thicker, more durable fabric than you might find for a similar price on the high street.

A blazer from ethical brand Lora Gene
A blazer from the ethical brand Lora Gene. Photograph: Lora Gene
For those who can afford mid-high street prices, researching small, sustainable brands might glean results. A quick look at the Zara website today shows silk dresses selling for as much as £199, with plenty of others at £49.99, while H&M-owned &OtherStories sells blazers for about £120; Barber points out that at these prices, shoppers could switch to ethical brands including Lora Gene, for which she has designed a collection, and Ninety Percent. (There is a dress I like the look of for £64 in the Ninety Percent sale; a mustard Lora Gene blazer is £139.)

If those prices are out of reach, swapping clothes, shopping secondhand, repairing and rethinking what you already have, and occasionally renting for special occasions can all be cheaper – even free – alternatives.

Voting with your wallet will only go so far, however, and won’t be possible for many people who are struggling, as the number of people in poverty in the UK soars to 15 million. Questioning the magical thinking of rock-bottom prices is not about blaming the consumer. Instead, you could write to MPs and CEOs and demand that they do something about living wages and the environmental cost of fashion. The responsibility lies with brands, and with the government, which should be held to account for a broken system.

small_https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1486445817637-2fd966879295?ixid=MnwxMjA3fDB8MHxwaG90by1wYWdlfHx8fGVufDB8fHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&auto=format&fit=crop&w=750&q=80

thumbnail_https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1486445817637-2fd966879295?ixid=MnwxMjA3fDB8MHxwaG90by1wYWdlfHx8fGVufDB8fHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&auto=format&fit=crop&w=750&q=80

https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1486445817637-2fd966879295?ixid=MnwxMjA3fDB8MHxwaG90by1wYWdlfHx8fGVufDB8fHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&auto=format&fit=crop&w=750&q=80

The truth about fast fashion

“Well, what can you actually put in it?” my colleague asks. I shrug. “Maybe some coins… gum?” I ponder the brown and fuzzy load on my chest: smaller than a newborn baby but bigger than a hamster.

“Definitely not your phone,” my colleague quips. Tiny bags have been in menswear for some time: Dior, Jacquemus and Balenciaga are just some of the big fashion houses that have brought out versions for guys.

In pre-pandemic times, my bag (a normal human-size one from Eastpak) was a cross between a life raft and a bin bag. It had the essentials (pens that don’t work, notebooks without covers); the all-weather options (two pairs of sunglasses, a beret, a serious-looking winter hat, an umbrella); and the frankly sickening (a few chipped Strepsils, empty packets of Nurofen, a Christmas card and some tissues from 1984). At the very bottom was lots of sand from a long-forgotten beach trip. I obviously needed a new bag. But this one?

It’s about the size of a packet of Hula Hoops, with a few zippable pockets. Wearing it around my shoulders, on its black strap, I feel odd. Not like a giant, exactly, but a dafter version of myself. Because, even though the tiny bag is, well, tiny, it is conspicuous.

Priya Elan
How to wear a jazzy knit
Read more
On the catwalk, the bags look perfectly angular and black, as if they should be worn by Bond villains carrying the antidote to some world-destroying poison. And on the pages of fashion magazines, they look enticing, offering the same semi-outlaw appeal as a chunky gold chain or a black wristband.

In real life, however, I’m left pondering their purpose – although I suppose purpose isn’t really the point. The teeny-tiny bag is, I believe, an accessory, and so not practical at all. The upshot? I’ll have to figure out somewhere else to put my house keys.

medium_https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1506152983158-b4a74a01c721?ixid=MnwxMjA3fDB8MHxwaG90by1wYWdlfHx8fGVufDB8fHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&auto=format&fit=crop&w=752&q=80

small_https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1506152983158-b4a74a01c721?ixid=MnwxMjA3fDB8MHxwaG90by1wYWdlfHx8fGVufDB8fHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&auto=format&fit=crop&w=752&q=80

thumbnail_https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1506152983158-b4a74a01c721?ixid=MnwxMjA3fDB8MHxwaG90by1wYWdlfHx8fGVufDB8fHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&auto=format&fit=crop&w=752&q=80

https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1506152983158-b4a74a01c721?ixid=MnwxMjA3fDB8MHxwaG90by1wYWdlfHx8fGVufDB8fHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&auto=format&fit=crop&w=752&q=80

Tiny bags: perfectly formed

KABUL, Afghanistan — Haji Sakhi decided to flee Afghanistan the night he saw two Taliban members drag a young woman from her home and lash her on the sidewalk. Terrified for his three daughters, he crammed his family into a car the next morning and barreled down winding dirt roads into Pakistan.

That was more than 20 years ago. They returned to Kabul, the capital, nearly a decade later after the U.S.-led invasion toppled the Taliban regime. But now, with the Taliban sweeping across parts of the country as American forces withdraw, Mr. Sakhi, 68, fears a return of the violence he witnessed that night. This time, he says, his family is not waiting so long to leave.

“I’m not scared of leaving belongings behind, I’m not scared of starting everything from scratch,” said Mr. Sakhi, who recently applied for Turkish visas for himself, his wife, their three daughters and one son. “What I’m scared of is the Taliban.”


![https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/onesport/cps/800/cpsprodpb/9B21/production/_114931793_gossip.jpg](https://res.cloudinary.com/mehmoh41/image/upload/v1627793065/114931793_gossip_a190a86102.jpg)

Haji Sakhi at his home in Kabul.
Haji Sakhi at his home in Kabul.Credit...Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times
Across Afghanistan, a mass exodus is unfolding as the Taliban press on in their brutal military campaign, which has captured more than half the country’s 400-odd districts, according to some assessments. And with that, fears of a harsh return to extremist rule or a bloody civil war between ethnically aligned militias have taken hold.

So far this year around 330,000 Afghans have been displaced, more than half of them fleeing their homes since the United States began its withdrawal in May, according to the United Nations.

Many have flooded into makeshift tent camps or crowded into relatives’ homes in cities, the last islands of government control in many provinces. Thousands more are trying to secure passports and visas to leave the country altogether. Others have crammed into smugglers’ pickup trucks in a desperate bid to slip illegally over the border.

In recent weeks, the number of Afghans crossing the border illegally shot up around 30 to 40 percent compared to the period before international troops began withdrawing in May, according to the International Organization for Migration. At least 30,000 people are now fleeing every week.

The sudden flight is an early sign of a looming refugee crisis, aid agencies warn, and has raised alarms in neighboring countries and Europe that the violence that has escalated since the start of the withdrawal is already spilling across the country’s borders.
“Afghanistan is on the brink of another humanitarian crisis,” Babar Baloch, a spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said earlier this month. “A failure to reach a peace agreement in Afghanistan and stem the current violence will lead to further displacement.”

The sudden exodus harks back to earlier periods of heightened unrest: Millions poured out of Afghanistan in the years after the Soviets invaded in 1979. A decade later, more fled as the Soviets withdrew and the country fell into civil war. The exodus continued when the Taliban came to power in 1996.

Afghans currently account for one of the world’s largest populations of refugees and asylum seekers — around 3 million people — and represent the second highest number of asylum claims in Europe, after Syria.

Now the country is at the precipice of another bloody chapter, but the new outpouring of Afghans comes as attitudes toward migrants have hardened around the world.

After forging a repatriation deal in 2016 to stem migration from war-afflicted countries, Europe has deported tens of thousands of Afghan migrants. Hundreds of thousands more are being forced back by Turkey as well as by neighboring Pakistan and Iran, which together host around 90 percent of displaced Afghans worldwide and have deported a record number of Afghans in recent years.

Coronavirus restrictions have also made legal and illegal migration more difficult, as countries closed their borders and scaled back refugee programs, pushing thousands of migrants to travel to Europe along more dangerous routes.

In the United States, the growing backlog for the Special Immigration Visa program — available to Afghans who face threats because of their work with the U.S. government — has left roughly 20,000 eligible Afghans and their families trapped in bureaucratic limbo in Afghanistan. The Biden administration has come under heavy pressure to protect Afghan allies as the United States withdraws troops and air support amid a Taliban insurgency.

Still, as the fighting between Taliban, government and militia forces intensifies and civilian casualties reach record highs, many Afghans remain determined to leave.

One recent morning in Kabul, people gathered outside the passport office. Within hours, a line snaked around three city blocks and past a mural of migrants with an ominous warning: “Don’t jeopardize you and your family’s lives. Migration is not the solution.”

![https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/07/31/world/31afghanistan-journalist2/merlin_191024286_4da14c25-fe94-49bf-b0c5-0778f60b64e2-jumbo.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp](https://res.cloudinary.com/mehmoh41/image/upload/v1627789468/merlin_191024286_4da14c25_fe94_49bf_b0c5_0778f60b64e2_jumbo_79e38bef84.jpg)


A mural warning against migration served as a backdrop for people lining up outside the passport office in Kabul.
A mural warning against migration served as a backdrop for people lining up outside the passport office in Kabul.Credit...Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times
Few people were deterred.

“I need to get a passport and get the hell out of this country,” said Abdullah, 41, who like many in Afghanistan goes by only one name.

Abdullah, who drives a taxi between Kabul and Ghazni, a trading hub in the southeast, remembers speeding toward the capital when fighting erupted recently, picking up a group of Afghan troops who demanded a ride along the way. Two days later, his boss called to say that Taliban fighters had asked about a taxi driver seen evacuating security forces — and had recited Abdullah’s license plate.

Terrified, Abdullah says he will find any way to leave.

“Trying to leave legally is costly, and if we go illegally it is dangerous,” he said. “But right now the country is even more dangerous.”



“I need to get a passport and get the hell out of this country,” said Abdullah, 41.
“I need to get a passport and get the hell out of this country,” said Abdullah, 41.Credit...Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times
Farther west, a surge of Afghans have flocked to Zaranj, a hub for illegal migration in Nimruz Province, where smugglers’ pickup trucks snake south down the borderlands to Iran each day.

In March, around 200 cars left for the Iranian border each day from Zaranj — a 300 percent increase from 2019, according to David Mansfield, a migration researcher and consultant with the British Overseas Development Institute. By early July, 450 cars were heading to the border each day.

Those who can afford it pay thousands of dollars to travel to Turkey and then Europe. But many more strike pay-as-you-go deals with smugglers, planning to work illegally in Iran until they can afford the next leg of the journey.

“We don’t have any money or means of getting a visa,” said Mohammad Adib, who is considering migrating illegally to Iran.

Mr. Adib fled his home in Qala-e-Naw, in the country’s northwest, in early July after the Taliban laid siege to the city one night. As dawn broke, he says the paw-paw-paw of gunfire was replaced with wails from neighbors. Electricity lines littered the ground. Doors of houses were broken down. The road was stained with blood.

“We cannot find another way out,” he said.

In Tajikistan, officials recently announced that the country was prepared to host around 100,000 Afghan refugees, after the country received around 1,600 Afghans this month.

Other neighboring countries have expressed less willingness to host an outpouring of Afghans, instead beefing up their border security and warning that their economies cannot handle a new influx of refugees. Leaders in Central Europe have called to increase their border security as well, fearing the current exodus could swell into a crisis similar to that in 2015 when nearly a million, mostly Syrian migrants entered Europe.

But in Afghanistan, about half of the country’s population is already in need of humanitarian assistance this year — twice as many people as last year and six times as many as four years ago, according to the United Nations.

Mohammad Nabi Mohammadi, 40, borrowed $1,000 to bring 36 relatives to Kabul after the Taliban attacked his village in Malistan district. Today his three-room apartment, situated on the edge of the city, feels more like a crowded shelter than a home.



Mohammad Nabi Mohammadi borrowed $1,000 to bring 36 relatives to Kabul after the Taliban attacked his village in Malistan district. 
Mohammad Nabi Mohammadi borrowed $1,000 to bring 36 relatives to Kabul after the Taliban attacked his village in Malistan district. Credit...Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times
The men sleep in one large living room, women stay in the other and the children cram into the apartment’s one small bedroom alongside bags of clothes and cleaning supplies. Mr. Mohammadi borrows more money from neighbors to buy enough bread and chicken — which have nearly doubled in price as food prices surge — to feed everyone.

Now, sinking further into debt with no relief in sight, he is at a loss for what to do.

“These families are sick, they are traumatized, they have lost everything,” he said, standing near his kitchen’s one countertop — out of earshot from his family. “Unless the situation improves, I don’t know what we will do.”


![https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/07/31/world/31afghanistan-journalist2/merlin_191024286_4da14c25-fe94-49bf-b0c5-0778f60b64e2-jumbo.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp](https://res.cloudinary.com/mehmoh41/image/upload/v1627789468/merlin_191024286_4da14c25_fe94_49bf_b0c5_0778f60b64e2_jumbo_79e38bef84.jpg)


Jan Bibi, left, 40, lost her husband, who was a militiaman, during the fighting in Malestan. She now resides at Mr. Mohammadi’s house in Kabul.
Jan Bibi, left, 40, lost her husband, who was a militiaman, during the fighting in Malestan. She now resides at Mr. Mohammadi’s house in Kabul.Credit...Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times
Asad Timory contributed reporting from Herat; Zabihullah Ghazi from Laghman; Fahim Abed and Jim Huylebroek from Kabul.



small_https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1531983412531-1f49a365ffed?ixid=MnwxMjA3fDB8MHxwaG90by1wYWdlfHx8fGVufDB8fHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&auto=format&fit=crop&w=750&q=80

thumbnail_https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1531983412531-1f49a365ffed?ixid=MnwxMjA3fDB8MHxwaG90by1wYWdlfHx8fGVufDB8fHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&auto=format&fit=crop&w=750&q=80

https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1531983412531-1f49a365ffed?ixid=MnwxMjA3fDB8MHxwaG90by1wYWdlfHx8fGVufDB8fHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&auto=format&fit=crop&w=750&q=80

As Fears Grip Afghanistan, Hundreds of Thousands Flee

Componentity

Panel title

Componentity