At least 1.2 million Afghans deported this year despite risks: UN
At least 1.2 million Afghans have been forced to return from Iran and Pakistan this year, the UN refugee agency said on Saturday, warning that repatriations on a massive scale have the potential to destabilise the fragile situation in Afghanistan.
Iran and Pakistan in 2023 launched separate campaigns to expel foreigners they said were living in the country illegally. They set deadlines and threatened them with deportation if they did not leave. The two governments deny targeting Afghans, who have fled their homeland to escape war, poverty or Taliban rule.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees said that of the 1.2 million returning Afghans, more than half had come from Iran following a March 20 government deadline for them to leave voluntarily or face expulsion.
Iran has deported more than 366,000 Afghans this year, including refugees and people in refugee-like situations, according to the agency.
Iran's 12-day war with Israel has also driven departures. The highest number of returns was on June 26, when 36,100 Afghans crossed the border in one day.
'Afghan families are being uprooted once again, arriving with scant belongings, exhausted, hungry, scared about what awaits them in a country many of them have never even set foot in,' said Arafat Jamal, the UNHCR representative in the Afghan capital, Kabul.
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