Iran’s Deportations of Afghan Refugees Are Fueling Regional Instability

While many Iranians moved to the streets to celebrate the end of the short war, but the 12 -day drama with Israel in June, Abdullah, 23, could not join the cheerful crowds. As an Afghan, not documented in Iran, he could not risk running in the Iranian security forces, whose existence was heavier than usual.

“I am afraid that they will arrest me as a spy. I can’t leave the house,” he said. Foreign policy at that time. Abdel -Najat was referring to the joint claim that Afghans were cooperating with Moussad, the Intelligence Agency in Israel. On the 12 days that followed Israel’s widespread attack on Iranian nuclear and military facilities on June 13, more than 700 people were arrested on charges of espionage and sabotage. government media has broadcast confessions extracted from Afghans from among them, creating fertile land to accelerate what has become one of the largest mass deportation campaigns in modern history.

For more than four decades, Iran has provided a shelter to millions of Afghan fleeing conflict and poverty in their country, creating the largest Afghan diaspora and one of the largest refugees in the world. The estimated number of refugees currently residing in Iran ranges from about 4 million to 6 million, according to Iranian officials – the vast majority of them from Afghanistan.

On June 24, Abdel -Alwan became one of more than half a million Afghans who had been deported since the beginning of the war. Many of them were brutally taken – they were photographed by the security forces at home, sometimes during sleep, in the workplace, or in mosques, with families tearing in this process.

Abdullah was arrested outside the bakery, where he was buying bread. “The Iranian police have treated us very badly,” he remembered while talking to him Foreign policy From his family’s house in Kabul. “They took me to a refugee camp where they hit us and kept hungry and thirsty. Those who gave money to the Iranian police managed to leave easily. After a lot of beating, I paid 3 million tomans and was deported. They tear a passport and the United States.” (3 million Tuman, about 70 dollars, is the “municipal fees” that were asked to pay before the deportation.)

The story of Abdel -Sakhr is not abnormal. According to Arafat Jamal, the United Nations High Representative of Refugees (the United Nations Commission for the United Nations Commission for the UN Commission, the refugees arrive in Afghanistan unbelievable. Jamal said: “In every step, more and more decomposing things.” “Everything from waking up in the middle of the night to leave to take their luggage, and making employers not pay salaries, and land owners do not They respond to the deposit. “

The beauty of the situation at the border crossing monitors Islam in Qala in the province of Hirat in western Afghanistan, where thousands of Afghans have returned by force every day. The recent deportations are unprecedented, not only in size – 1.6 million Afghans have been returned to Afghanistan from Iran in 2025 alone – but also in severity. “This is what makes it a humanitarian crisis,” Jamal said. “Usually, the limits of Islam see about 5,000 to 7,000 crossings per day, but we saw summits more than 50,000. While somewhat settled at about 20,000, this is still four times the natural ability.”

Tehran has always imposed many restrictions even on the Afghans with organized situation: they are allowed to settle only in some provinces, and work in specific sectors-most of them from low-wage and low-wage jobs-and have difficulties in obtaining bank cards or SIM cards, which makes it very difficult to use public transport and push more people to the underground economy. Most of those who fled to Iran after August 2021, when the Taliban returned to power, and only got a numbers that allow temporary survival and limited access to basic services such as education and health care. As a result, many families are unable to legalize their residence, and leave them on the margins of society without reaching basic services.

Amid the Iranian economic crisis, the discriminatory feelings and the long -term Afghan membrane have become more prevalent, and are fueled by the speech of government officials and chanted by many ordinary Iranians, from hateful social media to bakeries that refuse to sell bread to Afghans.

Arash Azizi, the writer and historian who focuses on Iran, said that the shift of blame abroad is an appropriate outlet for public anger and official deviation. Aziz said: “It is an alternative to people’s problems.” “People do not have sufficient electricity, water and wages. They have a lack of goods, and the government says it is because of the Afghans.”

The increasing economic conditions reach the maximum population, including refugees, in particular. “Our work is difficult, but the wage is low. With high housing costs, do you think we have time to spread hatred or spy?” Sahar, a 24 -year -old Afghan woman who lives in Iran with her mother and sister, asked on WhatsApp.

If the mass deportation continues at this scale, it can bring the opposite results on the economy. Afghans make up 65-75 percent of the workforce for agriculture, construction and service in Iran. Sudden deportation increases employment costs, disrupting supply chains, and reducing the informal economy of Iran – without addressing unemployment among educated Iranians, who usually avoid manual work.

Despite the current difficulties, Sahar is more concerned about how her female family survives if she was forced to return to Afghanistan. “How will we remain safe if people discover that three women live in a house without a father or brother?” I asked, referring to Taliban’s strong restrictions on women and their movement.

United Nations experts strongly condemned the mass deportation of the Afghans, who face “very real risks to persecution, threats and violent revenges.” Possible consequences may include arbitrary detention, detention, torture and inhuman treatment “an exacerbation of the Taliban restrictions on humanitarian workers.”

The deportation of this scale is a threat to regional stability.

The Taliban’s realistic government, which is recognized by Russia only in the name of the legitimate government of Afghanistan, is wrestling with the economic collapse and a humanitarian crisis that is badly caused by Western sanctions and Trump administration discounts. Suhail Shaheen, head of the Taliban Political Office in Doha, said that receiving thousands of returnees – often reaching anything other than clothes on their backs – is a great challenge.

“The government has established about 13 committees to meet all the basic needs, from transportation and registration to health services, education, and temporary shelter in the camps for a few days after their arrival,” he told the newspaper. Foreign policy.

With the extension of the Taliban resources – as the cuts forced the employees ’decrease by 20 percent throughout the public sector – internal humanitarian assistance is very important. According to Shaheen, the Taliban pressures the Iranian government to allow the Afghans to return voluntarily, not to force them to go out.

Financing discounts forced major agencies such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to reduce their operations significantly. The lack of international organizations is usually on the border. “Usually, in the event of emergency, organizations that prepare camps, provide shelter, food, non -food materials, water, and first aid for emergency, said Mayowend Rohani, Executive Director of the International Aid Network and the aid that works in Islam, said,” Usually, in the event of emergency, organizations that prepare camps, provide shelter, food, non -food materials, water, and first aid for emergency, said Mayowend Rohani, Executive Director of the International Aid Network and ISLAM aid, said, ” But this time, none of it was in place-there were a few organizations on the ground. “

It is not only Iran This is the deportation of Afghans. Even European countries explore this possibility, as Germany recently allowed two Taliban officials in the country to coordinate deportations. One of these trips carrying 81 Afghan men fell, and many of them were accused of violent crimes, in Kabul on July 18.

Matter is more than that Pakistan also rushes the deportation program, which was launched in 2023, to expel all Afghans. This intense effort-which increases pressure on Kabul due to his inability to control Tahrbi Talban Pakistan, a Pakistani militant group working from Afghanistan-which nourishes more cross-border rebellion.

Shaheen said: “We are ready to accept our citizens, but this must be done under an appropriate frame.” “Returns need resettlement, employment opportunities, and in some cases medical treatment.”

Obaidullah Bahir, the lecturer of transitional justice at the American University in Afghanistan, pointed out that with the deportation of this range, individuals who cross the border properly are almost impossible. Most returnees are likely to settle in the already crowded urban centers that are stressed in resources.

The abuse associated with deportation and the terrible economic situation at home, especially young people, may lead to joining armed factions and armed groups working in Afghanistan and conducting attacks on neighboring countries. “The countries that deport Afghans are trying to solve a short -term problem without looking at the long -term consequences,” Bahir said. “It creates resentment, and even if someone does not pick up the same weapon, it may become indifferent if others seek to harm a neighboring country. This is very dangerous for the entire region.”

In addition, fragile demographic shock in Afghanistan can be disrupted and recently regained. In a country with about 40 million people, 75 percent of the population lives at the subsistence level.

Many Afghan returnees were born from Iran and Pakistan abroad and have not been presented in the country before, making the environment almost strange to them. The smugglers took advantage of the crisis during the recent Iran war, and told Afghans that they could cross them to Türkiye, although the Iranians who have only valid visas were the ones who could enter. The market value of Afghan smuggling to Türkiye was already 178.4 million dollars a year before the war.

Despite the increase in hostility in neighboring countries and the high rates of retreat from Türkiye, this trend is expected to continue to deport and grow. For many Afghans, immigration remains the only way to ensure their families remain. “Families send one, two, or even three young people – any of the past they can bear – the borders, in the hope of reaching Europe and being able to support their families in the country,” Ibrahim Bahs, a senior analyst in Afghanistan, told the International Crisis Group.

This is the future Abdullah – who now lives in Kabul with his older parents and siblings – for himself. He was considering pushing a smuggler to take on a risky trip to Belarus and then Poland, where immigrants suffer from a violent recovery on the border. Afghans are among the largest groups trying to cross the East European Union border, and are increasingly increasingly facing security measures along the way.

Despite his awareness of the dangers and death of his citizens in the forests along the borders of Poland-Belarus, Abdullah is still ready to take his chances. “I am trying to leave Afghanistan by any possible way,” he said. “There is no hope or life for us here.”