Sources
In accordance with the EUAA COI Report Methodology, various published documentary sources have been consulted on relevant topics for this report. These include: COI reports by governments; information from civil society, advocacy groups, humanitarian organisations, and non-governmental organisations (NGOs); international and NGO human rights reports; reports produced by various bodies of the United Nations; Afghan and regionally-based media and social media; academic publications and think tank reports and specialised sources covering Afghanistan. All information from these sources was consulted within time constraints and within the research constraints posed by Afghanistan’s challenging information environment.
In order to address research gaps in publicly available sources, oral sources have been interviewed to obtain first-hand information on the situation on the ground. These sources were assessed for their background, publication history, reputability and current ground-level knowledge. Many of these sources have, however, requested to remain anonymous for their own safety or their families’ safety, or due to operational reasons to be able to continue to travel to Afghanistan and report from the country. For example, some sources did not want to risk getting future visas rejected by the Afghan de facto authorities for being cited by name and title in this report. All oral sources are described in the Annex 1: Bibliography.