Situation of Afghans refugees in Iran

After the Taliban came to power, a new wave of Afghan migration to Iran began. Iran is in fact the first option for them to get out of the current situation, and they have no other choice.

“People are simply being dumped on the border” by Iranian authorities, a United Nations official said. “The percentage of deportations is rising dramatically since the takeover by the Taliban,” the official said.

Migrants without passports or Iranian visas usually enter Iran via desert smuggling routes in the province of Nimroz, where the borders of Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan meet. Returnees on the way back cross the Silk Bridge linking Afghanistan and Iran as they walk alongside fuel trucks and baggage handlers pushing rickety trolleys and wearing scarves and swimming goggles to protect against windblown sand.

About 780,000 registered Afghan refugees and 2.3 million undocumented live in Iran, 55% of them in Tehran, Isfahan, and Razavi Khorasan. There has been discrimination against Afghans in general and undocumented ones in particular.

Iranian officials say around 4,600 children collect recyclable garbage on the streets of Tehran to sell and that the numbers are growing. It's estimated that 95 percent are foreigners and most of them are young Afghans. Many other children work at markets or cleaning cars in the Iranian capital. 

Most of them often visit the German embassy in central Tehran once or twice a week. Many Afghans gather in front of the German embassy in Tehran every day in hopes of finding out about possible opportunities and asylum in Europe. It is very difficult for them in Iran to enter Europe legally. Countries like Germany only accept rare cases: for example, former German military personnel or Afghan colleagues from German relief organizations. None of this applies to many Afghans and their familylies and if Iran expels them, where should they go? Shall they return to the war?

 

Source and Credit :  RFREL, WSJ, UNHCR