When governing body offficials the Africa Cup of Nations title to Morocco, overturning Senegal’s victory two months after the chaotic final, football fans were stunned.
While Moroccan fans took to the streets to celebrate their team’s belated success, the decision by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) was met with disbelief in Senegal, with fans and authorities calling the decision “unjust”.
Senegal’s government on Wednesday said it will pursue “all appropriate legal avenues” to overturn the decision and called for an international investigation into “suspected corruption” within African football’s governing body.
The Senegal Football Federation (FSF) then announced on Thursday that it had instructed lawyers, apparently carrying through its threat to take the matter to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). Such a move could lead to a yearlong legal battle before a ruling.
CAF’s appeals board on Tuesday ruled that Senegal forfeited the final by leaving the field of play without the referee’s authorisation, and it awarded Morocco a default 3-0 win.
The game was delayed for 14 minutes as most of the Senegalese players and staff returned to their dressing room, while Senegal fans battled stewards behind one of the goals in protest against a controversial penalty call for Morocco after Senegal had a goal ruled out.
Morocco and Senegal have long shared close ties built on religion, trade and culture. Tijaniyyah, a Sufi Muslim order, is widely followed in both countries. Moroccan banks and companies heavily invest in Senegal’s finance and agriculture sectors. Cultural exchanges include student programs, migration and joint festivals.
But the tensions surrounding the final and CAF’s appeals court decision to overturn Senegal’s victory have put a strain on the relationship between the two countries.
Last month, 18 Senegal fans who were arrested on charges of hooliganism at the final were given prison terms of up to a year by a Moroccan court. The Senegalese government has expressed solidarity with the Senegalese supporters.
Seydina Issa Laye Diop, president of the Senegalese national team’s fan group called “12th Gainde”, told The Associated Press on Thursday that the incidents should not damage the relationship between Senegal and Morocco.
“However, there are limits: if this continues, it could somewhat affect the pride of the Senegalese people,” Diop said. “If the goal is to preserve friendship, then it must be nurtured. Small gestures can have a big impact. These are things we can move past, especially since, during the trial, no solid argument has justified the continued detention of these supporters.”
Mariama Ndeye, a student in Senegal’s capital Dakar, said the decision has negatively affected her view of Moroccans.
“When everything goes well, they call us their brothers. But when things don’t go their way, they start being nasty,” Ndeye said.
The newspapers reporting the fallout from CAF’s AFCON decision are seen on display in Dakar, Senegal [Misper Apawu/AP]
Politics and sport are rarely separated as Senegal and Morocco find out
On Wednesday, Morocco’s embassy in Dakar called on Moroccans in Senegal to “demonstrate restraint, vigilance, and a sense of responsibility.”
“It is important to recall that, in all circumstances, it is only a match, the outcome of which should never justify any form of escalation or excessive remarks between brotherly peoples,” the embassy said.
While the dispute has remained centred around the football match, bad feelings have spread more generally.
In Casablanca, home appliances business owner Ismail Fnani said he felt like other African countries were rooting against Morocco during the final.
“Honestly, my views toward Senegalese and sub-Saharan Africans changed after this,” he said. “We used to feel sympathy and help them because they were migrants who had struggled to get here. Where there was once sympathy and compassion, now I will treat them as they have treated us.”
Mohamed el-Arabi, who works in a grocery shop in Casablanca, said he did not celebrate the decision awarding Morocco the title.
“We would have preferred it to stay with Senegal because it doesn’t feel right otherwise,” El Arabi said.
“People here have started hating Senegalese. They no longer provide them with help. We used to be like brothers, especially since they are Muslims like us, but that is no longer the case,” he added.
The Senegalese government’s allegation of “suspected corruption” at CAF followed anger at perceived favouritism towards Morocco, which is a 2030 World Cup co-host and has invested heavily to become a football superpower.
On Wednesday, CAF President Patrice Motsepe defended the body against perceptions of favouritism towards Morocco.
“Not a single country in Africa will be treated in a manner that is more preferential, or more advantageous, or more favourable than any other country on the African continent,” Motsepe said in a video published on the CAF website.
TOKYO — Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is traveling Wednesday to the United States for what she expects to be a “very difficult” meeting with President Trump after he called on Japan and other allies to send warships to secure the Strait of Hormuz.
The three-day visit to Washington was originally expected to focus on trade and strengthening the U.S.-Japanese alliance as China’s influence grows in Asia. It is now expected to be overshadowed by the war the United States and Israel launched against Iran on Feb. 28.
”I think the U.S. visit will be a very difficult one, but I will do everything to maximize our national interest and to protect the daily lives of the people when the situation changes daily,” Takaichi told parliament on Wednesday, hours before her departure.
Takaichi held her first meeting with Trump in October in Tokyo, days after becoming Japan’s first female prime minister. A hard-line conservative, Takaichi is a protege of former leader Shinzo Abe, who developed a close friendship with Trump.
Her initial plan was to focus largely on China and strengthen the Japan-U.S. alliance ahead of Trump ‘s highly anticipated diplomatic trip to China that had been planned for months. The White House announced Tuesday that it is being delayed due to the war in the Middle East.
Takaichi will be in the hot seat figuring out what best to offer to Trump. Experts say showing commitment and progress in investment deals is key to a successful summit.
Japanese officials say the two sides will work to deepen cooperation in regional security, critical minerals, energy and dealing with China.
No plan to send warship to the Strait of Hormuz
A key U.S. ally in Asia, Japan has carefully avoided clear support for the U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran or a decision over a warship deployment. That’s mainly because of Japan’s constitutional constraints but also due to a legal question over the U.S. action and strong public opinion against it.
She told parliament that Japan hopes to see a de-escalation of the war, which has disrupted deliveries of oil and gas that Japan is highly dependent on.
“Without early de-escalation of the situation, our economy will be in trouble,” she said. “Early de-escalation is important for both the U.S. and global economy.”
Japan also hopes to secure its traditional ties with Iran, where most of Japanese oil imports come from.
Takaichi and her ministers have denied that Washington officially requested Japanese warships sent to the Strait of Hormuz. Trump on X asked a number of countries, including Japan, to volunteer. He then said he no longer needs them, complaining about a lack of enthusiasm.
That takes some pressure off Takaichi.
“We have no plans to send warships right now,” Takaichi told the parliamentary session Wednesday. A dispatch for survey and intelligence missions are possible but only after a ceasefire, she said. Some Japanese experts have commented that minesweeping would be a mission that the country could carry out when hostilities end.
“I will clearly explain what we can do and cannot do based on the Japanese law,” Takaichi said. “I’m sure (Trump) is fully aware of the Japanese law.”
China and security
Takaichi wants to discuss China’s security and economic coercion and ensure the U.S. commitment in the Indo-Pacific region, especially as some U.S. troops stationed in Japan are being shifted to the Middle East — a change seen by Japan as a potential risk for Asia as China’s clout grows.
Takaichi plans to reassure Trump of Japan’s military buildup, emphasizing the acceleration of long-range missile deployment to enhance offensive capabilities. This breaks from Japan’s postwar self-defense-only principle and reflects closer alignment with the U.S.
At the summit, Takaichi is expected to convey Japan’s interest in joining America’s “ Golden Dome “ multi-billion dollar, multi-layered missile defense system.
Japan considers China a growing security threat and has pushed a military buildup on southwestern islands near the East China Sea.
Takaichi has pledged to revise Japan’s security and defense policy by December and seeks to further bolster Japan’s military with unmanned combative weapons and long-range missiles.
Her government is to scrap a lethal arms exports ban in the coming weeks to promote Japan’s defense industry and cooperation with the United States and other friendly nations.
Oil in Alaska, rare earths in Japan
A resource-poor nation, Japan is seeking to diversify oil suppliers and is finalizing a Japanese investment for increased oil production in Alaska and stockpiles in Japan, according to media reports. A Japanese investment in small modular reactors and natural gas in the U.S. is also a possibility.
If agreed, the projects would be part of a $550 billion investment package that Japan pledged in October. In February, the two sides announced Japan’s commitment to the $36 billion first batch of projects — a natural gas plant in Ohio, a U.S. Gulf Coast crude oil export facility and a synthetic diamond manufacturing site — whose progress is also to be disccused with Trump.
Japan reportedly plans to propose a joint development of rare earths discovered in undersea soil around the remote Japanese island of Minamitorishima as part of the investment package.
Diplomatic and trade disputes have escalated further since Takaichi’s comment that any Chinese military action against Taiwan could be grounds for a Japanese military response.
Islamabad, Pakistan — The war launched by the United States and Israel on Iran has already killed more than 1,400 people, set off retaliatory attacks by Tehran targeting Gulf nations and Israel, and pushed global oil prices above $100 a barrel.
Now, eighteen days into the conflict, aid agencies and countries neighbouring Iran are increasingly concerned about a potential refugee crisis.
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The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, estimates that 3.2 million people have already been displaced in Iran since US-Israeli strikes began on February 28. For now, the number of people physically crossing Iran’s borders remains comparatively modest. But this is what could happen next, and has put Iran’s neighbours on high alert.
Iran borders seven countries: Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkiye and Turkmenistan. Iraq shares the longest frontier, stretching for almost 1,600km (994 miles).
Each of these states faces its own political pressures, economic limitations and security concerns.
But pressure on the ground in Iran is mounting. The country’s Red Crescent Society reports that more than 10,000 civilian sites have been damaged since the war began, including 65 schools and 32 medical facilities, while more than 1,400 people have been killed in the US-Israel attacks. Strikes have hit residential areas in Tehran, Shiraz and Isfahan.
Meanwhile, commercial flights out of Iran have been suspended as airspace is closed.
Eldaniz Gusseinov, head of research at the geopolitical advisory firm Nightingale International, noted that because strikes have so far been concentrated largely on Tehran and western and southwestern Iran, other parts of the country — especially provinces bordering Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan are absorbing much of the internal displacement.
“If the strike pattern remains the same, internally displaced people inside Iran will increasingly concentrate in provinces located near those states, creating the preconditions for cross-border movement,” the Almaty-based analyst told Al Jazeera.
And things could get worse. If Tehran, a city of about 10 million people, were to lose its electricity grid or water supply in a US-Israel attack, for instance, residents could be forced to leave en masse.
“Infrastructure destruction does not produce the gradual, manageable flows that the Syrian war initially generated. It produces sudden, massive displacement, driven by the collapse of basic urban services,” Gusseinov said.
Turkiye fears repeat of Syrian migration crisis
Among Iran’s neighbours, only Turkiye, Iraq and Pakistan have extensive experience of hosting large refugee populations.
Imtiaz Baloch, an independent researcher focusing on conflicts in Pakistan and Central Asia, said that if the crisis in Iran deepens, many Iranians could seek refuge in neighbouring states, particularly Iraq and Turkiye.
Analysts say no country faces greater political exposure than Turkiye.
“Turkiye is currently hosting many refugees from Syria and other countries. A new influx of Iranian migrants would likely intensify the humanitarian burden and create new challenges for both host countries and international relief agencies in the coming days,” Baloch said.
Turkiye shares a 530km (329-mile) border with Iran and allows visa-free entry for Iranian citizens. It already hosts the world’s largest refugee population, including roughly 3.6 million Syrians, and anti-immigrant sentiment has hardened within domestic politics over the past decade.
Turkiye’s interior minister, Mustafa Çiftçi, said earlier in March that the government had prepared three contingency plans for the war in Iran.
The first involves intercepting migration flows within Iranian territory before they reach the border. The second proposes establishing buffer zones along the frontier. The third would allow refugees to enter Turkiye under controlled conditions as a last resort.
Turkish authorities say they have already strengthened the border with Iran, adding 380km (236 miles) of concrete wall, 203 optical towers and 43 observation posts – undertaken, according to a Turkish Ministry of National Defence statement issued in January, as the US was building up its armada in the Gulf late last year.
“Although there is currently no mass migration detection at our borders, additional measures have been taken on the border line, and these measures will be implemented if needed,” the Defence Ministry stated on January 15.
So far, this has not been necessary. According to Turkish government data on the movement of people from Iran, 5,010 entered Turkiye from between March 1 and 3, while 5,495 exited.
But Turkiye has felt the effects of the war’s spillover in other ways. On March 9, NATO confirmed it had intercepted an Iranian ballistic missile over Turkish airspace. The debris landed near Gaziantep, in the western-most part of the country, about 50km (31 miles) from the Syrian border. Iran denied that it was behind the attack on Turkiye.
Crisis on an unprecedented scale?
What makes the current situation in Iran particularly urgent is the scale of its population, say analysts.
Syria had approximately 21 million people at the start of its civil war. Iran has roughly 90 million. The Syrian conflict caused more than 13 million people to be displaced, including more than 6 million who fled the country.
A proportionate displacement from Iran would represent a humanitarian crisis with few modern parallels. To put it into perspective, if a country of 90 million experienced the exact same scale of crisis as Syria, nearly 56 million people would be forced to flee their homes, and nearly 26 million of them would become international refugees.
Gusseinov said such a scale of displacement and the capacity of international aid agencies is “fundamentally mismatched”.
Furthermore, Iran itself hosts one of the world’s largest refugee populations: about 3.7 million displaced people, most of them from Afghanistan.
“Any mass displacement from Iran, therefore, creates a dual crisis: Iranian civilians fleeing outward, and Afghan and Iraqi refugees who were already in Iran being displaced a second time, or pushed back to countries that cannot absorb them,” he said.
Hamid Shirmohammadzadeh, 35, who arrived in Turkiye from Iran, shows his passport while staying at a hotel in Van province, Turkiye, March 5, 2026 [Dilara Senkaya/Reuters]
Iraq and the South Caucasus face difficult choices
Although most population movement is still taking place within Iran rather than across its borders, Iran’s neighbours do have cause for concern, analysts say.
“Iran’s neighbouring countries are already dealing with their own crises, which limits their ability to absorb a potential refugee influx. Countries such as Syria, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, and Afghanistan are facing varying degrees of economic, political, or security challenges. These internal pressures make it difficult for them to accommodate a large influx of refugees,” Gusseinov told Al Jazeera.
Iraq, which shares Iran’s longest border, faces a particularly complex situation.
The country is not only a potential destination for Iranian refugees, but has also been caught in military exchanges between Washington and Tehran. US forces have targeted armed groups operating from Iraqi territory, while Iran and pro-Iran armed groups have struck – or attempted to strike – US military and diplomatic positions inside the country.
The UN’s International Organization for Migration says disruptions on the Iranian side of the border have led to the closure of several crossing points, although Iraqi crossings remain technically open. Meanwhile, the UNHCR says it is monitoring developments closely, and that the Iraqi government would lead any emergency refugee response.
The semi-autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, which, unlike the rest of the country, still allows visa-free entry for Iranian passport holders, adds another layer of complexity.
The region hosts several Kurdish armed groups, some of which have reportedly been in discussions with Washington about receiving military support in return for joining the war against Iran. The development has prompted Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to strike Kurdish positions inside Iraqi territory.
Baghdad has publicly stated that it will not allow its territory to be used to infiltrate Iran, but experts on the region say its ability to enforce the position is limited.
Further north, the South Caucasus states of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia have each expressed concern while attempting to carefully balance relations with both Washington and Tehran.
Azerbaijan has closed its land borders to routine traffic, requiring government approval for any crossing, while Armenia’s border with Iran, which is just 44km (27 miles) long, remains open.
“Armenia is a small economy already absorbing Russian and Ukrainian migrants,” Gusseinov said.
(Al Jazeera)
Pakistan and Afghanistan confront overlapping crises
To Iran’s east lie Pakistan and Afghanistan, each grappling with existing refugee pressures.
According to the UNHCR, since October 2023, about 5.4 million Afghans have returned to Afghanistan from Iran and Pakistan, many not by choice.
Following the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021, a huge wave of Afghans sought refuge across the country’s borders, fearful of economic collapse and security threats.
The UN and international migration agencies estimate that between 1 and 1.5 million Afghans fled to Iran in the immediate aftermath of the US withdrawal, pushing the total Afghan population in Iran to upwards of 5 or 6 million.
Concurrently, hundreds of thousands of newly displaced Afghans crossed into Pakistan, joining a long-established refugee community there and swelling the total number of Afghans in the country to more than 3 million.
In response to this influx and citing domestic economic and security pressures, both Pakistan and Iran initiated aggressive mass deportation campaigns, forcing millions back into Afghanistan. Between late 2023 and the end of 2025, between 2.8 million and 3.5 million Afghans are thought to have been sent back.
Pakistan’s stringent repatriation plans pushed out more than 1.3 million people, while Iran drastically accelerated its expulsions, deporting nearly 2 million individuals in 2025 alone.
According to the UNHCR, in 2026 so far, more than 232,500 Afghans have returned to their country, including 146,206 from Pakistan and 86,253 from Iran.
The primary concern now is that the war in Iran could accelerate these returns, pushing people into communities already struggling to cope and potentially triggering further onward migration. The UNHCR has also warned that largescale and hurried returns of refugees could trigger further instability in the region.
Further complicating the situation, Pakistan and Afghanistan have been engaged in fighting, as Islamabad claims that Afghanistan is providing a safe haven to armed groups launching attacks at Pakistan. Kabul has consistently denied the presence of any such groups on its soil.
Another bout of hostilities in October 2025 led Pakistan to close its borders with Afghanistan. Since then, Afghanistan’s trade and economic ties with Iran have deepened.
“Destabilisation of the Iranian economy, therefore, hits Afghanistan through two channels simultaneously: reduced trade flows and refugee return surges,” Gusseinov said.
Meanwhile, Pakistan faces its own geographical and security challenges.
The country’s border with Iran runs through Balochistan, its largest but most volatile province, where separatist sentiment has simmered for decades. The province has seen an increasing number of attacks by armed groups seeking independence from Pakistan. In February this year, Pakistan’s military concluded a weeklong security operation in the province, and claimed it had killed 216 fighters in targeted offensives.
While Balochistan’s provincial officials say they have sufficient resources to accommodate refugees if large numbers begin arriving across the southern border, researcher Baloch said the reality was more complicated. Any refugee crisis, he said, could make the situation in Balochistan difficult for Islamabad to manage.
“Balochistan’s porous border is next to Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan province, a region that has historically been home to various separatist groups. Any significant influx of refugees across this border could impose additional security and economic costs on Pakistan,” Baloch said.
