UN warns that mass Afghan returns from Iran risk deepening instability in a nation already grappling with severe crises. Nearly 450,000 Afghans have returned from Iran since early June, according to the United Nations refugee agency, after Tehran imposed a July 6 deadline for undocumented migrants and refugees to leave the country.
The influx adds to Afghanistan’s already daunting challenges as the poor country struggles to absorb waves of returnees from Pakistan and Iran since 2023, during one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises following years of war.
The UNHCR says over 1.4 million have “returned or been forced to return to Afghanistan” thus far this year alone. Iran’s late May order potentially impacts four million illegal Afghans out of the roughly six million Afghan residents Tehran claims.
Crossings soared from mid-June, with around 40,000 individuals crossing into Afghanistan on some days. From June 1 to July 5, 449,218 Afghans crossed back from Iran, raising the 2024 count to 906,326, an International Organisation for Migration spokesman said.
Most returnees have complained of being pressured by the authorities, arrested, deported, and losing money through rushed departures. The response has been hindered by major reductions in foreign aid, with several calls for the UN, global NGOs, and Taliban officials to provide additional funding.
The UN has warned that this mass return would further destabilise Afghanistan, already beset with entrenched poverty, unemployment, and climate change impacts. “Forcing or pressuring Afghans to return risks further instability in the region, and onward movement towards Europe,” the UNHCR said on Friday.
As Taliban officials call for a “dignified” return procedure, Iranian media regularly reports large-scale arrests of “illegal” Afghans. Iran’s deputy interior minister, Ali Akbar Pourjamshidian, admitted that although undocumented Afghans in Iran were “respected neighbours and brothers of faith”, Iran’s “capacities have limits as well”. He signalled the return procedure “will be carried out gradually”.
Afghans had come to work in Iran and remitted important earnings back to their families in Afghanistan. Returnee Ahmad Mohammadi explained to the AFP news agency at a Herat province reception centre, “If I can get a job here that meets our daily needs, I’ll remain here. But if not, we’ll have no option but to go to Iran once again, or to Pakistan, or some other place.”
