Why has Iran expelled half a million Afghans in 15 days?

Iran has expelled over half a million Afghans since the war with Israel ended.

The United Nations and other international organisations have called the development one of the biggest forced movement of population in decades.

Millions from Afghanistan had fled to neighbouring Iran after the Taliban returned to power in 2021.

Many of them work in low-wage jobs and as labourers and allege that they face discrimination on a daily basis.

But what do we know? And why has Tehran expelled nearly half a million Afghans?

What do we know?

Iran initially announced the deportation program in March.

Tehran had set a July 6 deadline for Afghan migrants to leave.

Hundreds of thousands of Afghans have been deported from Iran over the past week alone.

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has estimated that 508,426 Afghans have left Iran via the border between June 24 and July 9 alone.

That figure was 33,956 last Wednesday, 30,635 last Tuesday, and 51,000 last Friday.

That figure in June was over 256,000.

Some reports say that even those with valid visas have been forcibly removed.

The Afghans have been making the crossing in searing weather.

Conditions have hit as high as 40 degrees Celsius.

Footage shows hundreds of migrants queuing up at the Islam Qala border in Western Afghanistan.

Mihyung Park, chief of mission for the UN’s international organisation for migration, told CNN, “There are thousands of people under the sun - and you know how hot Herat can be. It is quite dire. Last week was quite massive.”

Making things worse, many of these children are unaccompanied minors.

“Last week it was about 400 unaccompanied, separated children – that is a lot,” Park added.

Some say they were  have been in Iran for years, and that they were treated badly by the authorities.

“First, they took $200 (Rs 17,150) from me. Then they sent me to the detention center where I was kept for two nights and they forced me to pay another $50 (Rs 4,200). In the detention center they wouldn’t give us food or drinking water. There were around 200 people there, and they would beat us up, they would abuse us,” Bashir told CNN.

A young Afghan migrant who lives in Tehran told _RFE/RL h_is father was ill-treated by the police.

“My father was arrested and tortured on charges of espionage,” he said. “His feet were tied with chains, and he was not given food or water. He was detained by the Iranian police for several days and later deported to Afghanistan. The situation here for Afghan refugees is very bad,” he added.

This individual said his visa has also expired. He is fearful of the same treatment at the hands of the authorities.

“The situation of Afghan refugees has deteriorated further over the past week or two”, another refugee told the outlet.

“Even those who have legal status and work live in fear. Most of our friends have been expelled. The situation is very worrying,” he told RFE/RL.

An Afghan woman who has lived in Iran for over a decade is now heading home with her five children.

“I didn’t even get to pack their clothes. They came in the middle of the night. I begged them to give me just two days to collect my things. But they didn’t listen. They threw us out like garbage”, she told The Guardian.

“From Shiraz to Zahedan [close to the Afghan border], they took everything from us. My bank card had $149 (Rs 12,700). They charged $1 (Rs 85) for a bottle of water, $2 (Rs 170) for a cold sandwich. And if you didn’t have it, your child went without,” she added.

The woman now says she has no prospects in Afghanistan – and has to support her children and elderly mother.

Things are even worse for women who are making the crossing. This is because under Afghan law, they are not allowed to venture out without male guardians. Anyone violating the law is subject to flogging.

Human rights groups have sounded the alarm at these developments, saying most migrants have “nothing but the clothes on their back” and “in urgent need of food, medical care, and support.”

The Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said they have faced “exhaustion, hunger, and uncertainty on their journey home” amid high temperatures.

Officials say several people have died during the crossings, though numbers remain uncertain.

Why has Tehran expelled half a million Afghans?

The development comes in the backdrop of spurious claims by Iranian media and some officials that Israel used Afghans to spy on the country during the conflict.

State media has aired footage of an Afghan “spy” confessing his crimes.

The individual claimed he worked for someone in Germany.

“That person contacted me and said he needed information on certain locations,” the alleged spy said. “He asked for some locations, and I provided them. I also received $2,000 from him.”

Richard Bennett, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, wrote on X last week that “hundreds” of Afghans have been “accused of espionage.”

Bennett also voiced apprehension about Iran’s media “labeling Afghans [and] minority communities as traitors”.

Immigration has long been an issue in Iran, which has played host to the largest number of refugees anywhere in the world.

It appears that the authorities are using this as a pretext to carry out their long-awaited plans.

“The gloves are off,” Arafat Jamal, the UN refugee agency representative in Kabul , told The New York Times. “There’s a bit of a frenzy at the moment, no one is going to oppose deportations of Afghans right now so those who wish to deport them have been ramping it up.”

“We’ve always striven to be good hosts, but national security is a priority, and naturally illegal nationals must return,” Iran’s government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani said on July 1.

The situation in Afghanistan bears watching too.

Hundreds of thousands of Afghans have returned from Pakistan, which is also planning a similar programme.

The UNHCR has claimed that at least 1.2 million Afghans have been forcibly sent back from Iran and Afghanistan.

The agency warns that this could cause a crisis in Afghanistan.

With inputs from agencies