Last week, Pakistan and Iran deported over 22,000 Afghan refugees back to their homeland, reported Ariananews.
On one Saturday, July 27, 5,303 Afghan refugees were forcibly returned to the bordering Afghan provinces of Nimroz, Kandahar, and Nangarhar. Between July 21 and 26, Iranian and Pakistani authorities deported 17,265 Afghans, including women and children.
Many of the deported complained about mistreatment by police officers during detention and deportation. However, officials from Pakistan and Iran claim they are acting in accordance with international laws and consider the deportation of illegal migrants their right.
Earlier in June, a representative of the Taliban* Commission for Assistance and Resettlement of Repatriates, Qari Yusuf Ahmadi, stated that since the beginning of 2024, the two neighboring countries have forcibly deported over 400,000 refugees, 75% of whom were deported from Pakistan.
Returning migrants to Afghanistan face serious challenges such as poverty, unemployment, and lack of housing.
In August 2021, around 600,000 Afghans fled to Pakistan. Over the past 40 years, several million Afghans have moved to Pakistan, escaping various conflicts, including the Soviet invasion in 1979, civil war, and the U.S. occupation after September 11, 2001.
Iran became a refuge for Afghans in the early 1980s when they began to migrate there en masse, first as refugees and then as economic migrants. Before August 2021, their number in Iran was less than 2 million, but after the Taliban came to power, the number of Afghan refugees on Iranian territory increased to 3.5 million. Over the past year, Iran has deported more than 1 million refugees.
CentralasianLIGHT.org
July 30, 2024