News | Latest Breaking News Stories & Headlines

Girls at the UNICEF-run school see their education as a privilege

Inside Afghanistan: Girls want education as a right

Girls in Afghanistan will learn this month whether the Taliban is sincere in its assertions that it will allow them to continue their education.

World • 15 Mar 22

Eight-year-old Rabia pictured standing outside her house, located in one of Afghanistan's poorest regions

Inside Afghanistan: Relentless poverty and hardship

Suma says she is 50 but she looks around 75. Another one of Afghanistan's invisible women who, unlike us, don't fret about their age.

World • 10 Mar 22

The hustle and bustle in Afghan cities is all very normal, except that there are very few women

Inside Afghanistan: Women noticeably absent in society

Travelling through Afghanistan, women are noticeably absent from society, writes Eimear Lowe in Kabul.

World • 08 Mar 22

Most women in Afghanistan have been barred from their government jobs since the Taliban took control

Taliban says women workers must cover up

Women working in Afghan government departments must cover up - even with a blanket if necessary - or they may lose their jobs, the Taliban's religious police said.

World • 22 Feb 22

'Cruel' Afghan admission scheme 'a missed opportunity'

A scheme allowing members of the Irish-Afghan community to apply for family members to join them here has been criticised as being "stressful", "cruel" and a "missed opportunity".

Ireland • 21 Feb 22

Rescuers worked to reach the boy in Shokak

Taliban officials say Afghan boy trapped in well dies

A five-year-old boy trapped for three days down a well in a remote Afghan village has died, several Taliban officials have said.

World • 18 Feb 22

'Number' of British citizens detained in Afghanistan

A "number" of British nationals are being detained in Afghanistan, the UK government has said, adding that it had raised the issue with the country's Taliban authorities.

World • 12 Feb 22

A Taliban fighter stands guard in Kabul (File image)

Foreign journalists detained in Kabul released

Two international journalists who were detained while on an assignment for the United Nations refugee agency in Kabul have been released along with the Afghan nationals working with them, the UNHCR has said.

World • 11 Feb 22

Women and children are pictured at a health centre in Kabul in January

WHO says measles cases, deaths surging in Afghanistan

A measles outbreak in Afghanistan infected tens of thousands and killed more than 150 people last month alone, the World Health Organization has said, warning of more deaths.

World • 11 Feb 22

The latest detentions come less than a month after a pair of women activists went missing after participating in a Kabul protest

UN demands info from Taliban on two more missing women

The United Nations has demanded the Taliban provide information on two more women activists allegedly detained by the group this week - bringing to four the number missing this year

World • 04 Feb 22

Students in the courtyard of Kandahar University as the Taliban reopened public universities across some provinces

Afghan universities reopen, trickle of women attend

Some public universities opened in Afghanistan today for the first time since the Taliban seized power in August, with a trickle of women attending classes that officials said would be segregated by sex.

World • 02 Feb 22

Members of the Taliban stand over a plinth overlooking Kabul (File image)

Taliban killed 100 ex-govt members in Afghanistan - UN

The Taliban and its allies have allegedly killed more than 100 former Afghan government members, security personnel and people who worked with international forces, according to a United Nations report.

World • 31 Jan 22

Children pictured in Parwan, Afghanistan, today. Many people are at risk of poverty in the country

Afghan children malnourished from birth - Irish worker

An Irish woman who spent eight months working at a Medicins Sans Frontieres hospital in Afghanistan has told an Oireachtas Committee today that some children now arriving at their feeding centre in Helmand Province are malnourished from the very first day of their lives.

World • 25 Jan 22

Taliban representatives arrived in Norway yesterday for talks with western representatives

Taliban, Afghan civil society 'break the ice' in Oslo

Talks in Oslo today between the Taliban and Afghan civil society members served as an "icebreaker", on the eve of their meeting with Western diplomats to discuss human rights and the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, an Afghan participant said.

World • 23 Jan 22

Afghanistan is frequently hit by earthquakes, especially in the Hindu Kush mountain range (File photo from 2015 quake)

At least 26 killed in Afghanistan earthquake

At least 26 people were killed after an earthquake hit western Afghanistan on Monday, an official said.

World • 17 Jan 22

Internally displaced Afghans are seen in a camp in Balkh, Afghanistan

€3.9bn needed to avert catastrophe in Afghanistan - UN

The United Nations has said it needed close to €4 billion in aid for Afghanistan in 2022 to avert a humanitarian catastrophe and offer the country a future after 40 years of suffering.

World • 11 Jan 22

Hamid Safi (L), the taxi driver who had found baby Sohail at the airport, cries as he hands over Sohail to his grandfather

Baby lost in Afghan airport chaos is returned to family

An infant boy handed in desperation to a soldier across an airport wall in the chaos of the American evacuation of Afghanistan has been found and has finally been reunited with his relatives in Kabul.

World • 09 Jan 22

Abdul Ghani Baradar said that in some places 'people do not have food, accommodation, warm clothes, or money'

(File Image)

Taliban deputy PM calls for aid without political bias

The Taliban's deputy prime minister has urged the global community to offer support to Afghan people without any "political bias" as the country faces a major humanitarian crisis.

World • 07 Jan 22

Women hold placards during a protest in Kabul

Afghan women protest over 'murders of former soldiers'

A crowd of women have marched through the Afghan capital accusing Taliban authorities of covertly killing soldiers who served the former US-backed regime.

World • 28 Dec 21

A Taliban fighter (right) inspects documents of people queuing to enter the passport office in Kabul today

Taliban govt to resume issuing passports in Kabul

Afghanistan's Taliban authorities said today they will resume issuing passports in Kabul, giving hope to citizens who feel threatened living under the Islamists' rule.

World • 18 Dec 21

A woman collects money during a World Food Programme cash distribution in Kabul last month

Taliban prepare new Afghan budget without foreign aid

Afghanistan's finance ministry under the new Taliban government has prepared a draft national budget that, for the first time in two decades, is funded without foreign aid, a spokesman said.

World • 17 Dec 21

Edi Maa holds her baby receiving treatment for malnutrition at a MSF nutrition centre in Heart, Afghanistan

Mothers selling children to feed family - UN food chief

The head of the World Food Programme has said the UN agency is facing a perfect storm where conflict, climate and Covid are coming together to create unprecedented suffering in poorer and war-torn countries.

World • 15 Dec 21

Minister for Justice Helen McEntee said applications would be assessed on a case by case basis

Effort to 'not break up families' in Afghan programme

The Minister for Justice Helen McEntee has said that efforts will be made to "try not to break up family members" when assessing applications under the Afghan Admission Programme which will open on Thursday.

Ireland • 14 Dec 21

A view of the damage caused by the strike on 29 August

No US troops to be punished over Kabul drone strike

The US Department of Defense has said that no US troops or officials will face disciplinary action for a drone strike in the Afghan capital Kabul in August that killed 10 Afghan civilians, including seven children.

World • 13 Dec 21

A child cries in the malnutrition department of Indira Gandhi Children's Hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan

€247m fund transfer to Afghanistan charities agreed

Donors to the World Bank-administered Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF) have decided to transfer vital funds to humanitarian organisations in the stricken country.

World • 10 Dec 21