Afghan refugee Mohammed Reza Zafar, 35, displays his U.N. refugee card at an Afghan bakery where he works in India's capital of New Delhi. Image: Lauren Frayer/NPR ...

NEW DELHI, India, May 18 (UNHCR) - At 21, Jagjit Kaur has spent more than half her life in New Delhi. She looks, sounds and behaves like an Indian. "My Indian friends are shocked when I tell them I am ...

Afghan refugee Ziaul, from Herat, speaks to CBS News in New Delhi, India, where she has lived for six years with her children. She dreams one day of opening her own restaurant.

Among the 21,000 Afghan refugees in India, only a small number have been officially recognized. The remaining 11,000 asylum seekers are left in a bureaucratic limbo, struggling for basic recognition.

In India, you don't have that option, which means even after 10 years being an Afghan refugee in India, it can still be difficult to get formal employment or go to university," says Hamsa ...

The system strains under a yearslong backlog. As of 2019, Afghans accounted for around a third of the nearly 40,000 refugees registered in India, according to the U.N. refugee agency.

Experts say India is home to about 18,000 documented Afghan refugees. That's lower than other countries in the region such as Pakistan and Iran, and even the United States.

NEW DELHI, India, May 18 (UNHCR) - At 21, Jagjit Kaur has spent more than half her life in New Delhi. She looks, sounds and behaves like an Indian. "My Indian friends are shocked when I tell them I am ...

Afghan refugee Mohammed Reza Zafar, 35, displays his U.N. refugee card at an Afghan bakery where he works in India's capital of New Delhi. Updated August 19, 2021 at 1:36 PM ET ...

The Taliban's takeover of Kabul and return to power after nearly 20 years brings back painful memories for many Afghan refugees in India, some of whom grew up under the Taliban. Desperate scenes of ...