More than 230,000 Afghan returned to their country from Iran during June, most of them were deported by Tehran, according to the United Nations International Immigration Organization on Monday, after the Islamic Republic ordered millions of Afghans residing on its territory irregularly to leave.
The spokesman for the organization, Oand Aziz Aqa, told the French Press Agency that 23,941 Afghan crossed the border between the two countries between the first of June and the twenty -eighth of it, indicating that more than half of them (131912 people) returned within only one week (between 21-28 of the month).
He pointed out that since the beginning of the year, “69,1049 Afghan returned from Iran, 70 percent of them have been forcibly repeated.”
The number of Afghans who has returned to their country, some of whom was born in Iran, or has long been residing in it, has increased significantly in recent weeks.
Last week alone, more than 30,000 people were returned in some days, according to the Immigration Organization.
This number now decreased to between 6 thousand and 7 thousand people a day, according to the United Nations and the “Taliban” authorities, but the deportation is expected to resume in large numbers soon, as Tehran granted last month four million illegal “deadline” until July 6 to leave its lands.
And Saturday, families carrying bags in a reception center at the Islam Qadat Al -Hudoud crossing, according to the Immigration Organization, gathered.
These returnees are afraid to face more difficult circumstances in light of the lack of job opportunities in Afghanistan, which is witnessing the second humanitarian crisis in the world, according to the United Nations, despite the security calm it is currently witnessing.
While the United Nations confirms that the last war between Iran and Israel has accelerated departures, the Afghan immigrants met by the French Press Agency confirm that the risk of deportation was their only motivation.
He called God Ahmadi, who was born in the Islamic Republic 28 years ago, to the “French Press Agency”, that in Iran “even if you are above suspicions and have identification papers, they do not respect you if you are Afghan.”
He and his family are planning to go to a cable, but they have no idea what they will find in the capital or if they are able to earn a living there.
The Afghan authorities, which are not recognized by any country in the world, which have already been deprived of a large part of the international aid that Kabul was receiving in the past, faces a great difficulty in receiving its returning citizens.
Meanwhile, many Afghans are deported from neighboring Pakistan. Since the end of 2023, more than a million Afghan has been forced to leave Pakistan, while more than twice this number left Iran, half of them children, according to the United Nations.
In 2023, Iran and Pakistan launched separate campaigns to expel foreigners who said that they live in the country illegally. They set final dates and threatened them with deportation if they did not leave.
The two governments deny targeting the Afghans who fled their homeland to escape war, poverty, or the rule of the “Taliban”.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said that among the 1.2 million Afghan returns, more than half of them came from Iran after the deadline that the government set for them on March 20 to voluntarily leave or confront the expulsion.
Iran has deported more than 366,000 Afghan this year, including refugees and people in refugee -like conditions, according to the agency.
Arafat Jamal, representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in the Afghan capital, Kabul, said: “Afghan families are uprooted from their roots again, and they reach a few properties, exhausted, hungry, and afraid of what awaits them in a country that many of them have never settled their lands.”
He added that women and girls are very concerned, as they fear the restrictions imposed on freedom of movement and basic rights such as education and work.
More than half of Afghanistan depends on humanitarian aid. But opposing the Taliban policies and reducing funding on a large scale lead to the exacerbation of the situation, as relief agencies and NGOs reduce basic services such as education and health care.
