While Tens Of Thousands Of Afghans Leave Pakistan For Afghanistan, Returnees From Iran Spike Too

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Afghan refugees in Pakistan walk toward the Torkham border crossing with Afghanistan on November 3, following Pakistan's decision to expel people illegally staying in the country.
Afghan refugees in Pakistan walk toward the Torkham border crossing with Afghanistan on November 3, following Pakistan’s decision to expel people illegally staying in the country.

As tens of thousands of Afghan refugees deported from Pakistan arrive in Afghanistan, there has been a much quieter exodus along its western border, where the number of Afghans coming back from Iran has doubled during the past month.

Abdullah Qayomi, head of the ruling Taliban’s refugee affairs at the Islam Qala border gate in the western province of Herat, said 14,480 Afghans have arrived at the crossing Qala this week alone, with daily numbers rising from about 1,500-2,000 to 3,000-4,500.

“When Pakistan made the decision to deport our countrymen, the figures started to rise here [too],” Qayomi was quoted by AFP as saying.

Last month, Islamabad announced plans to deport hundreds of thousands of undocumented Afghans from Pakistan, sparking warnings from international aid agencies that the move could cause a humanitarian crisis.

WATCH: Thousands of Afghans forced to return to Afghanistan after a crackdown in neighboring Pakistan say they now face life in makeshift camps without proper sanitation or water.

Afghan Returnees Describe Dire Conditions In Their Homeland

Since then, more than 300,000 Afghans have returned to their country from Pakistan, where authorities have pledged to deport more than 1.7 million undocumented Afghans.

Meanwhile, Tehran announced a similar plan that caught little attention, even though the Middle Eastern country is home to millions of Afghans. In August alone, some 46,000 Afghans returned voluntarily to Afghanistan from Iran, while another 43,000 were deported for a lack of documentation.

In an attempt to settle the issue with Tehran, a delegation led by the Taliban regime’s de facto deputy prime minister for economic affairs, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar Akhund, is visiting Iran this week.

Still, this week Tehran banned Afghans with temporary work authorization from seeking employment.

“I’m worried because if I am fired because of lacking a work permit, how will I feed my seven-member family?” Enaytullah Alokozai, who works as an accountant for an Iranian business, told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi.

An Afghan girl looks out from a car window as her family returns home, after Pakistan ordered undocumented migrants to leave the country.

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“If I go to Afghanistan, there is no work there either. We are at an impasse,” said Mustafa, a young Afghan man who has been working in Iran for a month.

Iran has hosted millions of Afghans for more than four decades. Still, Tehran has often complained of the lack of international aid for hosting Afghans.

More than 70 percent of the 3.6 million Afghans who left their country after the Taliban militants seized back power in August 2021 fled to Iran.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimates that 4.5 million Afghans live in Iran. But Tehran estimates the number to be over 5 million.