Iran expels more than one million Afghan in a climate of xenophobia spurred by Israel’s attacks | International

The Afghan are in Iran those foreigners do not always welcome, those “others” who arrive many times with empty hands and who end up blaming evils such as poverty or crime. Migrants such as deharted and barefashed children who sell gum next to the Grand Bazar de Tehran; The workers who double their backs in the works or in the agricultural fields, or the refugees who fled from hell that the Taliban have reserved for them. This migrant community has been the object of racist aggressions and bulos campaigns for years, a climate of xenophobia spurred for the 12 days of Israel’s attacks against Iran of June, but that came from before. Since January, Tehran has forced the return to Afghanistan of at least 1.2 million Afghan, according to the United Nations. Of these, a figure close to half only between June 24 and July 9, amid accusations of alleged espionage for Israel.

There are no exact numbers, but it is believed that most of those Afghan have been expelled and taken to the border, sometimes on buses, by the Iranian authorities, denounces the UN. One of its agencies, the International Organization of Migration (IIM), raised more than 714,000 migrants returned between January 1 and 29 of that month. Of those migrants, practically all, 99%, lacked documents and 70% had been returned to force, almost always with it.

Others have returned to their land, in theory by their own decision, dragging behind many children, according to the photographs of the border crossings with Afghanistan, and loaded with the belongings of a lifetime they have been able to transport. Testimonies collected by the IOM and other humanitarian organizations indicate, however, that this return is not so voluntary. Many of those migrants alluded to “fear of being deported”, police raids or expulsions from their compatriots as reasons for their return.

Thousands of these people are now overwhelmed on the Afghan side of the Islam border crossing, in the Afghan Western province of Herat, a place without conditions to attend to such a massive flow of migrants, has warned United Nations. Not a few of them have nowhere to go. Or they had been born there for decades or even born there, although they do not have Iranian nationality, the Norwegian council for refugees has denounced. These refugees also return to a country whose population is mired in poverty, practically in its entirety (90%), according to NGOs. Afghanistan can hardly meet your most basic needs.

Refugees – and above all refugees – deported, also face the possibility of retaliation by the Taliban. The women’s rights activist Mahboba Afzali, 27, assures this newspaper, from the city in which he lives in Iran, that the fundamentalists are “biometrically registering” these eagerly ejected Afghan and taking the opponents “to an unknown place.”

This woman escaped Iran with her family months ago, after the Taliban threatened to kill her, among other things, for having founded a clandestine school for girls. Afghas are prohibited from studying from the age of 12 and they cannot, with few exceptions, work or travel alone. Afzali now lives with a permanent fear for police raids and the possibility of deporting Afghanistan with her husband and newborn daughter.

“I only ask international organizations and countries that support women who do not allow us to fall into the hands of the cruel Taliban,” implores this young woman, which describes the “violent and inhuman treatment that the police and some Iranians give to Afghan immigrants.”

The director of the Iranian Ministry of Interior Ministry, Nader Yarahmadi, confirmed Monday that, since April 1, “985,637 citizens (Afghan) unauthorized” had abandoned the country, in statements to the SemiumFEficial Agency Isna.

Raids and attacks

The raids referred to by AFZali intensified after March 20, when the Iranian authorities threatened Afghans without residence permission to stop them if they did not leave the country before July 6. Actually, humanitarian organizations had already denounced massive expulsions of Afghas, even some with visas in order.

The threat of that ultimatum then joined another fact that accelerated the deportation campaign: the 12 days of June attacks. A statement on the 4th day of the UN Agency for Refugees (UNHCR) denounced how the rhythm of expulsions had “increased significantly after June 13”, when Israeli planes began to bombard nuclear facilities and civil objectives in Iran.

Only between June 24, when the United States imposed a high fire between the Persian country and Israel, and on the 9th, more than half a million Afghan were forced to return to their country from Iranian territory, according to the IOM.

Since the beginning of the Israeli offensive, the statements without evidence against Afghans on social networks, and even by Iranian officials, who accuse them of having spied or collaborated with Israel, have spread widely. The official media have disseminated confessions of Afghas accused of being involved in acts of espionage and sabotage, which has offered a pretext to justify expulsions.

Numerous videos disseminated in Iranian social networks reflect police or Iranian aggressions on foot against Afghan migrants: for example, attacks with sticks and knives or, in the case of another recording, several adolescents slapping an Afghan contemporary in the Teherán Metro. On July 5, the UN Special Rapporteur for Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, denounced in a tweet that hundreds of people of that and other minorities were being arrested accused of espionage.

Other Afghan have assured that their Iranian employers do not pay their salaries and that private businesses and establishments and audiences refuse to attend them. Even in hospitals.

Mahboba Afzali has just been a mother. He explains that when he went to a hospital to give birth, he received a derogatory treatment from both the doctor and the midwife. His delivery, which initially raised without complications, underlines the activist, ended with a hemorrhage and three days of income, something that attributes to poor attention “for being Afghan.”

Several human rights organizations have suggested that Tehran has taken advantage of Israel’s attacks to focus on that vulnerable foreign minority, whose number has been wanting to reduce, and overshadow the criticism of its management of the conflict with Israel and for the serious economic situation of the country. In mid -2024, Iran was the country in the world with more refugee population, about four million people, practically all Afghan. To them is added another million million citizens of that country that reside in Iranian territory for other reasons.

In recent months, while xenophobia towards Afghans reached unprecedented levels, the use of the death penalty against them has also increased. More than 40 migrants of that nationality have been executed since January, especially for drug trafficking positions, according to the Hangow Human Rights Organization.

Between 2021, when the Taliban regained power, and 2024, only about 900 Afghan returned to their country voluntarily, according to the Institute of Migration Policies. In 2024, Iran deported 750,000 Afghan. He also announced a plan to reach two million expelled before March this year.