For more than three decades, Pakistan has been home to one of the world's largest refugee communities: the more than one million Afghans who have fled years of warfare in their home country. Living in temporary shelters along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border -- and cared for by the the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Pakistan's government, and numerous international care agencies -- this massive and persistent population remains vulnerable to multiple dangers, from outbreaks of disease to violence spilling over from the war next door. Associated Press photographer Muhammed Muheisen has spent the past several years in Pakistan, documenting the lives of these refugees, with a particular focus on the most vulnerable: the children caught up in the chaos as their families try to keep them safe. Muheisen's portraits below are part of the ongoing series here on Afghanistan.
Afghan Refugees in Pakistan
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In this Saturday, January 25, 2014 photo, Afghan refugee girl, Nazmina Bibi, 7, poses for a picture, while playing with other children in a slum on the outskirts of Islamabad, Pakistan. #
AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen -
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Afghan refugee girls, background, repeat verses of the Quran after their classmate Mohammed Akbar, 7, during a daily class to learn how to read verses of the Quran at a mosque in a poor neighborhood of Rawalpindi, Pakistan, on March 24, 2010. #
AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen -
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An Afghan refugee, her burka billowing, holds her daughter as she walks to her home through an alley of a poor neighborhood on the outskirts of Islamabad, on September 16, 2013. #
AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen -
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An Afghan refugee boy poses with a plastic rifle as he and other children celebrate the first day of the Eid al-Fitr festival, in a slum outside Islamabad, on August 20, 2012. #
AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen -
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Aisha Daoud, 4, holds a copy of the Quran while taking part in a daily class to learn how to read verses of the Quran, at a mosque in a poor neighborhood of Rawalpindi, on October 19, 2010. #
AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen -
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