MAZAR-E-SHARIF (SW) – In a quiet corner of the slightly dark room was sitting a young man in a wheelchair lost deep in thoughts about his troubled past as an irregular migrant.
Every time this young fellow, Yazdan Ali looked at his parents, he sighed with regret and got more depressed. He usually calls his little sister for help in taking him to his room where he remains in loneliness lost in thoughts about the past.
With trembling steps, I entered Yazdan Ali’s room and saw that his physical and mental condition was deteriorated.
He began with the tale of his irregular migration to Iran some ten years ago due to unemployment and insecurity. He recalled that he reached Iran despite thousands of problems, hunger and beatings by smugglers and thieves. He is still grappling with the haunting memories of all that happened ten years ago.
“They (smugglers) gave us food that was not for human”, he said. “Wherever we reached during the journey to Iran, we would be locked in cages with animals to spend the night. The food was not eatable, but even for that we were charged”, he said.
“We went through a lot of trouble, slept on rocks, sand and gravel and drank dirty water. The smugglers had links with highway thieves who looted us. When we went to work, in Iran, the employer handed us to the police when he ran out of money to pay us. They kept abusing us”, he said.
Yazdan Ali said in a hushed voice that he could not even imagine that one day he would be a burden on his family due to irregular migration.
He is paralyzed from the bottom of his back, unable to walk or sit, and spends the whole day in a dark room with thoughts marred by grief.
I asked Yazdan Ali about the accident leading to his injury. He sighed and said he was working as a metalworker in a building when a machine fell from the building on his back and was disabled him permanently.
Yazdan Ali urges his peers and those who are interested in irregular migration to never intend to go through irregular migration routes and try to find a job in their own country. He also called on the government to prevent irregular migration of youth that causes disability and death abroad.
In recent years, many Afghans have migrated at the cost of their own lives, and this number has increased over time, but officials at the Balkh department of refugees and repatriation said they are always trying to make people aware of the dangers of such migration.
Sayed Masood Qaderi, director of refugee and repatriation affairs in Balkh, told Salam Watandar that since the beginning of this year some 203, seven cases of people returning to Iran from Iran have been registered with him.
According to Qaderi, they have provided educational and vocational opportunities for those returning from Iran as well as to prevent irregular youth migration to foreign countries.
Meanwhile, Sayed Sher Hussain Henryar, Coordinator of the Refugee Information Center, told Salam Watandar that this directorate, in coordination with the Ministry of Higher Education and the Ministry Education, conducted many awareness programs on the negative consequences of irregular migration.
Last month, a fire broke out in a car carrying Afghan asylum seekers in Iran’s Yazd province, burning several Afghan refugees in the car, sparking widespread reactions on social media.
ENDS
