KABUL/TEHRAN: Iran is currently deporting thousands of refugees back to Afghanistan, where there is often little to expect but despair and a lack of prospects under the Taliban regime.
Earlier this month, the Iranian foreign minister travelled to Afghanistan for the first time since the Taliban took power in August 2021. According to Iranian officials, the aim of Abbas Araghchi’s one-day visit to Kabul was to hold diplomatic talks about the tensions on the two countries’ shared 950-kilometer (590-mile) border, the situation of Afghan refugees in Iran and the use of water resources in the Helmand River, which flows from Afghanistan into Iran.
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Although Iran has not yet officially recognized the Taliban government, it does maintain diplomatic relations with Afghanistan. The Iranian Embassy in Kabul is open, as is the Afghan Embassy in the Iranian capital, Tehran.
As migration from Afghanistan to Iran has increased, Tehran has been seeking to cooperate more with the Taliban in Kabul. Iran is currently deporting up to 3,000 refugees a day back to Afghanistan.
Many migrants fear returning to Afghanistan
“Afghans are being arrested at random, sometimes beaten, and then deported,” Marzia Rahimi, an Afghan who fled to Iran with her family two years ago, told DW.
“I am a journalist and worked in the profession for 10 years. When the Taliban returned, I was unemployed. My life was suddenly turned upside down. I was afraid for myself and my family. Then, secondary schools were banned for girls from the sixth grade onwards. So, I fled to Iran with my husband and our five children because I wanted to save them. But they can’t go to school here either.”
Rahimi currently has no documents: she did not register as a refugee for fear of being deported. She would have had to go to the Bureau for Aliens and Foreign Immigrants’ Affairs to apply for asylum, but said she was reluctant.
“Anyone who tries to make an application there is treated very badly and arrogantly, even insulted. In the end, there is hardly any chance of being accepted.”
It’s unclear exactly how many Afghan nationals, who have been fleeing civil war, poverty and now the Taliban for 40 years, are currently living in Iran. But the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) estimates that their number stands around 3 million. About 750,000 are officially registered as refugees and around 500,000 are immigrants with short-term residence permits and/or restricted work permits.
Many others have no papers and are in Iran illegally. They are often exploited, working for very low wages on construction sites or in companies on the outskirts of large cities.
Anti-refugee rhetoric rife in Iran
Amir Saeid Iravani, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, said in December that there were “more than 6 million Afghans in Iran,” and that this had put a strain on the country’s limited resources. He complained that the annual cost to Iran was more than $10 billion and that there was not enough support from the international community.
Iranian society generally is not particularly favourable toward Afghans. There are almost daily posts in social networks, as well as reports in the traditional media, about supposed “criminal refugees,” or the alleged burden they put on the health system. Refugees are blamed for the shortages of subsidized foods such as bread.
But Iran has suffered from an ongoing economic crisis for years, one that has been exacerbated by mismanagement, corruption and international sanctions.
Marzia Rahimi and her family receive no support from the Iranian state, and have been forced to find low paying jobs to feed themselves.
“We are committed to the Afghans in Iran,” Abdul Rahman Rashid, the Afghan minister for refugees and repatriation, told DW. “Refugees who have valid documents must have access to education and opportunities to work legally in Iran. We have communicated this to the Iranian authorities. We support returnees who come to Afghanistan.”
Afghanistan not prepared for return of refugees
But it’s not known what resources there are for this support. Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, an independent humanitarian organisation helping people forced to flee and one of the few international NGOs still active in Afghanistan, has warned that Afghanistan is not prepared for the return of the numerous refugees from Iran, and also Pakistan.
In response to a DW inquiry, the Norwegian Refugee Council wrote that on a visit to Afghanistan , Egeland had met families with young children who had returned to the country from Iran without knowing how they would survive. It said economic insecurity and a lack of employment opportunities were the biggest concerns for many of those who had returned and did not know what the future held.
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The NRC also said refugees with valid documents were not safe in Iran either, explaining that some had already been deported, and others had left in anticipation of being deported. It added that many children born in Iran were “returning” to a country that they did not know.