KABUL (SW) – Abdul Sattar used to struggle with speaking, but poverty coupled with insecurity compelled him to embark on irregular migration to Iran where he lost his life in a deep well during hard labolabor.
According to his relatives, Abdul Sattar could not speak properly, did not go to school, did not do any work; but as the head of his family, he had the duty to earn bread for children.
Abdul Sattar was 23-year-old living with his two brothers, father and mother in a village in Nahrin district in Baghlan province. They were suffering from economic problems and unemployment.
He eventually arrived in Iran after a month's risky trip with his cousin and took further risk by working in a deep water well to earn money.
Din Mohammad, his cousin and companion during the journey, said with tears in his eyes that poor Abdul Sattar worked for more than 12 hours in 60-meter-deep well.
According to Din Mohammad, the toughest job in Iran is to work in such deep wells that only the Afghans do out of desperation. He said tragic accidents were common when a well would collapse burying all beneath. He recalled that after a month's work at the well, Abdul Sattar became seriously ill and his situation worsened day by day, until one summer night he died in Iran.
According to Din Mohammad, he was unable to transport Abdul Sattar's body to Afghanistan due to lack of money and was forced to ask his family for money to buy a grave worth millions of Iranian tomans for the poor migrant worker.
Meanwhile, the International Organization of Migration has criticized the illegal treatment of refugees, saying that in all countries of the world, heavy work is done by the refugees and they have even faced fatalities in host countries.
Ghulam Murtaza Rasouli, director of legal support at the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation, told Salam Watandar that most of the heavy work in Iran is done by Afghan refugees, but there is no documentation that the refugees lost their lives because of heavy work.
Insecurity and poverty in the country have forced many young people to go to foreign countries in unfavorable ways and do heavy work.
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