HERAT CITY (SW) – Officials from the Herat immigration and returnees department have said more than 22,000 Afghan refugees have been forcibly deported from Iran in the past three months.
According to officials from, the Iranian government forcibly deports more than 500 Afghans citizens daily.
Javed Naadem, Herat's director of immigrants and returnees, told Salam Watandar that in the past three months, more than 22,000 Afghans – including children, women, adults and homeless women – have been forcibly deported.
A number of citizens who have recently been deported from Iran complaint about the Iranian officials. Ghulam Siddiq is an elderly man who was recently expelled from Iran after working for seven months there. He also complained about the mistreatment he faced.
According to the local civic activist, the Iranian government puts pressure on the Afghan government whenever it wants by forcibly expelling Afghan citizens.
Concerns about the forced deportation of Afghan citizens from Iran come as the International Organization for Migration announced on Wednesday that more than 447,000 Afghan refugees had returned from Iran in the first eight months of 2020.
The IOM said in a statement that the number of Afghan refugees returning from Iran from January 1 to August 15 this year increased by 71% compared to last year.
According to the statement, the migrants entered Afghanistan through the Nimroz and Islam Qala crossing points, and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) has provided humanitarian assistance to hundreds of undocumented migrants over the past week.
The Iranian consulate in Herat has always said that any Afghan citizen who enters Iran without a passport will be deported.
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