A SHARP rise in the number of Afghan refugees returning from Iran and Pakistan, many of them women and children, has sparked a humanitarian crisis at the border between Iran and Afghanistan.
The number of Afghans returning rose from about 5000 a day earlier this year to nearly 30,000 a day during the recent 12-day war between Israel and Iran, the UN said. On 1 July alone, more than 43,000 people were recorded as crossing back into Afghanistan.
“They are coming in buses, and, sometimes, five buses arrive at one time with families and others, and the people are let out of the bus, and they are simply bewildered, disoriented, and tired and hungry as well,” the UNHCR representative in Afghanistan, Arafat Jamal, said, as he described the scene at a border crossing.
“This has been exacerbated by the war, but I must say it has been part of an underlying trend that we have seen of returns from Iran, some of which are voluntary, but a large portion were also deportations.”
Iran has been forcibly deporting thousands of Afghans as part of a crackdown on undocumented migrants. In June, about 256,000 returned from Iran, as reported by the UN migration agency the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).
“The sheer number of returns from Iran, coming so soon after a spike from Pakistan, is placing immense strain on an already fragile response system,” the IOM director general, Amy Pope, said. “Families are arriving with nothing but the clothes on their backs, exhausted and in urgent need of food, medical care, and support. The scale of returns is deeply alarming, and demands a stronger and more immediate international response. Afghanistan cannot manage this alone.”
Up to six million Afghans live in Iran, and as many as four million could be undocumented, according to some estimates.
The IOM has recorded the return of 714,572 Afghan migrants from Iran between 1 January and 29 June. Of these, 99 per cent were undocumented, and 70 per cent were forcibly returned. A growing concern is the rise in families being deported, marking a shift from previous months, when most of those who returned were single young men, the UN said.
World Vision said that reception facilities at the border crossing were overwhelmed, and shelters built to house a few hundred people were now home to thousands.
Said Abdul Wahid, a father returning with his family from Iran, told the charity: “We have nothing, and were forced to return. We don’t have shelter or cash, and don’t know what to do.”
Women and children who arrive alone at the border are deemed to be particularly at risk of exploitation. Women and girls account for about half of those returning from Pakistan, according to UN figures.
Those who arrive without a male guardian face harassment, extortion, and threats of violence at border crossings, the UN said.
Afghanistan is already in the midst of its own humanitarian crisis, and the shortage of international aid funding has slashed the cash assistance which is given by the UNHCR to those who return. Almost 24 million people in the country are considered to be in need of humanitarian assistance.
The Red Cross says that it expects that an additional one million people may return from Iran to Afghanistan by the end of this year.