More than half a million Afghans have been expelled from Iran in the 16 days since the conflict with Israel ended, according to the United Nations, in what may be one of the largest forced movements of population this decade.
For months, Tehran has declared its intention to remove the millions of undocumented Afghans who carry out lower-paid labor across Iran, often in tough conditions.
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has said 508,426 Afghans have left Iran via the Iranian-Afghanistan border between June 24 and July 9.
A startling 33,956 crossed Wednesday and 30,635 on Tuesday, after a peak of 51,000 on Friday, ahead of a Sunday deadline from Iran for undocumented Afghans to leave.
The deportations – part of a program Iran announced in March – have radically increased in pace since the 12-day conflict with Israel, fueled by unsubstantiated claims that Afghans had spied for Israel prior to and during the attacks. Scant evidence has emerged to support claims of Afghan migrants assisting Israel has emerged, leading critics to suggest Iran is simply fulfilling a long-held ambition to reduce its illegal Afghan population and focusing internal dissent on a vulnerable minority.
Conditions for returnees are stark, with temperatures as high as 104 degrees Fahrenheit, or 40 degrees celsius, with reception centers on the Afghanistan border struggling.
Mihyung Park, chief of mission for the UN’s international organization for migration, told CNN on Tuesday, “There are thousands of people under the sun – and you know how hot Herat can be. It is quite dire. Last week was quite massive.”
Park said half of the year’s returnees had arrived since June 1, with 250,000 in one July week.
“Last week it was about 400 unaccompanied, separated children – that is a lot,” she added.
Footage from the Islam Qala border crossing shows hundreds of migrants awaiting processing and transport, often in the punishing summer Afghan heat. Many have lived for years in Iran, often in semi-permanent conditions despite lacking documentation, and found their lives uprooted in minutes in the recent crackdown.
Bashir, in his twenties, said in an interview in Islam Qala, a border town in western Afghanistan, that he was detained by police in Tehran and whisked to a detention center.
“First, they took 10 million tomans (about $200) from me. Then they sent me to the detention center where I was kept for two nights and they forced me to pay another 2 million ($50). In the detention center they wouldn’t give us food or drinking water. There were around 200 people there, and they would beat us up, they would abuse us,” he said.
Parisa, 11, was standing with her parents as she described being told she could not attend her school again this year, heralding her family’s deportation. Schooling for girls in Afghanistan is restricted under the Taliban.
“We spent six years in Iran before they told us to apply for the exit letter and leave Iran,” she said. “We did have a legal census document, but they told us to leave Iran immediately.”
The abrupt rise in deportations and claims of Afghans spying has attracted international condemnation. The UN’s special rapporteur to Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, posted on X at the weekend: “Hundreds of Afghans & members of ethnic & religious minorities detained #Iran accused of ‘espionage.’ Also reports of incitement to discrimination & violence in the media labelling Afghans & minority communities as traitors & using dehumanising language.”
“We’ve always striven to be good hosts, but national security is a priority, and naturally illegal nationals must return,” Iran’s government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani said on July 1, according to Reuters.
State media has also aired footage of an alleged Afghan “spy” for Israel confessing to working for another Afghan who was based in Germany.
“That person contacted me and said he needed information on certain locations,” the alleged spy claims. “He asked for some locations, and I provided them. I also received $2,000 from him.” The report did not identify the alleged spy or provide evidence to support the claim.
State media has also released footage of Tehran police rounding up migrants, who the correspondent identified as mostly Afghans, with its officers in pursuit of suspects across open fields.
Potential deportees are moved onto buses and forcibly marched off the vehicles to an unknown destination.
The state television correspondent in the footage asks one Tehran employer of the alleged illegal migrant: “Why did you hire the Afghan? It’s against the law.” The alleged employer replies, “I know! But I have to pay them so they can go back. They want to go and (are) waiting to get paid.”
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