The UNAMA report, released in September 2026, examines a wound that Afghanistan has never properly treated: the fate of the people who survived four decades of war without ever receiving justice, compensation, or even acknowledgment.
Drawing on interviews with 195 victims and their relatives, 23 non-governmental organisations, and 23 de facto officials, the report focuses mainly on the period between the 2001 US-led intervention and the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021.
It builds on UNAMA’s earlier finding that more than 40,000 civilians were killed and 77,000 wounded between 2009 and 2021 alone, numbers that only capture part of a much longer conflict’s toll.
What stands out most is how total the harm has been. Fifty-eight percent of interviewees reported lasting physical injuries, many still battling chronic pain or disability decades later, often without access to adequate healthcare.
Even more striking, 95 percent described ongoing emotional or psychological suffering, including flashbacks, depression, and in some cases suicidal thoughts after losing family members.
This is not a population that experienced a single traumatic event and moved on; it is one still living inside the aftermath, year after year, with no institutional structure built to help them recover.
The financial dimension compounds everything else. Eighty-four percent of victims suffered economic losses, from medical bills and funeral costs to destroyed homes many can’t afford to rebuild.
Widows face a particularly cruel bind: having lost their family’s main earner, they are now barred from working under current restrictions imposed by the de facto authorities, leaving many households without any viable income.
The report notes that financial desperation has pushed some families to pull children out of school and send them to work instead, meaning the war’s damage is now being passed down to a generation that never witnessed the incidents that caused it.
Perhaps the most damning finding concerns the systems meant to offer redress. More than half of victims never even attempted to file a complaint or seek assistance, largely because they didn’t trust the process to be fair or feared retaliation for trying.
Among those who did pursue some form of recourse, nearly two-thirds came away empty-handed, citing unanswered requests, denials, bureaucratic obstruction, or outright corruption.
Where support was given, it typically took the form of ad hoc payments ranging wildly from around 67 dollars to over 90,000 dollars, an inconsistency that reflects the absence of any coherent, rights-based reparations framework rather than a system responsive to actual need.
When asked what they actually want, victims were fairly consistent: financial compensation topped the list at 81 percent, followed by access to justice at 48 percent and guarantees that these harms won’t be repeated at 47 percent. Interestingly, only 18 percent said a formal apology mattered to them, with many stating plainly that words wouldn’t undo what happened or bring back people they had lost.
That distinction matters. It suggests that symbolic gestures, while easy for authorities to offer, are not what victims are actually asking for. They want tangible, material redress and structural change, not ceremony.
The inclusion of the de facto authorities’ perspective adds an important, if uncomfortable, dimension.
Officials from departments handling martyrs’ affairs, labour, public health, and provincial governance were interviewed about the services they provide, but the report frames this alongside clear gaps in institutional capacity and political will.
Combined with input from NGOs working directly with affected communities, the picture that emerges is of a support system that exists on paper more than in practice, leaving families of the missing and the wounded to navigate loss largely on their own.
Ultimately, this report functions less as a historical record and more as an indictment of ongoing neglect. It documents not just what happened during the war, but what has failed to happen since, the absence of truth-telling mechanisms, consistent reparations, or any real guarantee against recurrence.
Given UNAMA’s mandate from the UN Security Council to support victims’ rights and transitional justice, the report’s recommendations, covering consultation, truth-seeking, reparation, and non-recurrence, read as a roadmap that has existed in theory for years but has yet to be meaningfully acted upon by anyone with the authority to do so.
UNAMA’s “Left Behind” Report on Victims of Afghanistan’s Armed Conflict
The UNAMA report, released in September 2026, examines a wound that Afghanistan has never properly treated: the fate of the people who survived four decades of war without ever receiving justice, compensation, or even acknowledgment.
Drawing on interviews with 195 victims and their relatives, 23 non-governmental organisations, and 23 de facto officials, the report focuses mainly on the period between the 2001 US-led intervention and the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021.
It builds on UNAMA’s earlier finding that more than 40,000 civilians were killed and 77,000 wounded between 2009 and 2021 alone, numbers that only capture part of a much longer conflict’s toll.
What stands out most is how total the harm has been. Fifty-eight percent of interviewees reported lasting physical injuries, many still battling chronic pain or disability decades later, often without access to adequate healthcare.
Even more striking, 95 percent described ongoing emotional or psychological suffering, including flashbacks, depression, and in some cases suicidal thoughts after losing family members.
This is not a population that experienced a single traumatic event and moved on; it is one still living inside the aftermath, year after year, with no institutional structure built to help them recover.
The financial dimension compounds everything else. Eighty-four percent of victims suffered economic losses, from medical bills and funeral costs to destroyed homes many can’t afford to rebuild.
Widows face a particularly cruel bind: having lost their family’s main earner, they are now barred from working under current restrictions imposed by the de facto authorities, leaving many households without any viable income.
The report notes that financial desperation has pushed some families to pull children out of school and send them to work instead, meaning the war’s damage is now being passed down to a generation that never witnessed the incidents that caused it.
Perhaps the most damning finding concerns the systems meant to offer redress. More than half of victims never even attempted to file a complaint or seek assistance, largely because they didn’t trust the process to be fair or feared retaliation for trying.
Among those who did pursue some form of recourse, nearly two-thirds came away empty-handed, citing unanswered requests, denials, bureaucratic obstruction, or outright corruption.
Where support was given, it typically took the form of ad hoc payments ranging wildly from around 67 dollars to over 90,000 dollars, an inconsistency that reflects the absence of any coherent, rights-based reparations framework rather than a system responsive to actual need.
When asked what they actually want, victims were fairly consistent: financial compensation topped the list at 81 percent, followed by access to justice at 48 percent and guarantees that these harms won’t be repeated at 47 percent. Interestingly, only 18 percent said a formal apology mattered to them, with many stating plainly that words wouldn’t undo what happened or bring back people they had lost.
That distinction matters. It suggests that symbolic gestures, while easy for authorities to offer, are not what victims are actually asking for. They want tangible, material redress and structural change, not ceremony.
The inclusion of the de facto authorities’ perspective adds an important, if uncomfortable, dimension.
Officials from departments handling martyrs’ affairs, labour, public health, and provincial governance were interviewed about the services they provide, but the report frames this alongside clear gaps in institutional capacity and political will.
Combined with input from NGOs working directly with affected communities, the picture that emerges is of a support system that exists on paper more than in practice, leaving families of the missing and the wounded to navigate loss largely on their own.
Ultimately, this report functions less as a historical record and more as an indictment of ongoing neglect. It documents not just what happened during the war, but what has failed to happen since, the absence of truth-telling mechanisms, consistent reparations, or any real guarantee against recurrence.
Given UNAMA’s mandate from the UN Security Council to support victims’ rights and transitional justice, the report’s recommendations, covering consultation, truth-seeking, reparation, and non-recurrence, read as a roadmap that has existed in theory for years but has yet to be meaningfully acted upon by anyone with the authority to do so.
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