Iran Deporting Over 3,000 Afghan Refugees Daily

Deported refugees are crossing into Afghanistan through the Islam Qala border

Wed Jan 22 2025
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KABUL, Afghanistan: The Norwegian Refugee Council has said that Iran is deporting more than 3,000 Afghan refugees daily to their home country, compounding the plight of individuals returning to a country already grappling with a dire humanitarian crisis.

Jan Egeland, the head of the council warned that these individuals have no resources to restart their lives in Afghanistan, a country where millions are already in desperate need of assistance.

“The Islam Qala border crossing sees around 3,000 people crossing daily from Iran,” Egeland said as quoted by German media house DW after visiting the border town.

The development comes after the United States cancelled flights for nearly 1,660 Afghan refugees, many of whom remain stranded in Pakistan, following President Donald Trump’s executive order suspending US refugee programmes.

This decision affected individuals who were previously approved for resettlement in the United States under a special programme designed to help those who assisted US forces during the Afghanistan conflict.

Egeland further added that the Norwegian Refugee Council and other organisations are providing assistance and counsel services to the deported migrants at the border.

Many of the migrants have said that they have nothing to return to in Afghanistan and are compelled to start a new life in a country where 22 million people already require humanitarian assistance.

Egeland said that 22 million people in Afghanistan are in urgent need of basic aid, yet the international community has largely turned a blind eye to the crisis.

ALSO READ: US Cancels Flights for Afghan Refugees After Trump’s Executive Order

Recently, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said that over 1.2 million Afghan migrants have returned to Afghanistan from Iran in 2024. The organisation claimed that the majority of these migrants were forcibly deported.

Iran has intensified the detention and forced deportation of Afghan migrants this year, and its officials have stated that they plan to deport two million Afghan migrants by the end of the year.

The ongoing deportation of Afghan migrants shows the pressing humanitarian crisis in both Afghanistan and the region.

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