The Joint Staff commander of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Russian Colonel General Anatoly Sidorov, told reporters on Oct. 14 that there has been “a massive exodus of refugees” from Afghanistan since the Taliban victory, TASS news service reports. “Over 3 million Afghans fled to Iran and Pakistan alone—about 10% of Afghanistan’s entire population,” and there has been a migration of over a half-million people inside Afghanistan.
Sidorov observed that the migration issue really picked up in September, “when the radicals started to evict ethnic minorities en masse,” TASS wrote. But he also pointed to the devastating economic crisis. Sidorov warned of the threat of famine this fall (he cited an 80% reduction of fertilizers supplied to the northern provinces and 40% reduction in crop yields, in this regard), and the effects of the West’s financial strangulation of this nation. “The situation is exacerbated by the significant dependence of Afghanistan’s economy on external financial aid, most of which was blocked after the Taliban takeover,” he said.
Sidorov is in a position to know such matters, having headed the CSTO, the military alliance formed in the wake of the breakup of the Soviet Union by Russia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, since 2015.
