KABUL, Oct. 15 -- Afghans who return home alone are now four times as likely as returning families to plan to leave again, according to a survey the International Organization for Migration released last Thursday.

IOM's Returnee Resilience Overview, the third round of the series, covers nearly 6.5 million Afghans who have come back from Iran and Pakistan since mid-September 2023. Among individual returnees surveyed, 16 percent said they plan to move outside Afghanistan, up from 5 percent in the previous round and 11 percent in the first. For households the figure was 4 percent, from 1 percent. IOM ties the shift to income, employment and living conditions.

The reasons are in the same tables. Of surveyed returnees aged 14 and over, 69 pe...