With daily battles between the government forces and Taliban insurgents, the number of people who have fled their homes for safer parts of Afghanistan has hit a record high, the UN said Wednesday. As of November 30, 2016, more than half a million Afghans - 515,800 people - had been internally displaced by fighting, surpassing a previous record of 471,000 set last year, according to the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
The figure has more than doubled since 2014, pointing to a sharp increase in the number of people leaving their homes due to escalating violence in the war-torn country. "I am concerned these record figures show not just an alarming number of new IDPs, but a longer term crisis where increasing numbers of families in Afghanistan are facing prolonged displacement," Mark Bowden UN humanitarian co-ordinator said in a statement, referring to internally displaced people.