
Thousands of Afghans are fleeing Iran every day to escape war and deportation
Millions of Afghans have called Iran home for decades. But they have been leaving in large numbers since October 2023, when authorities announced a crackdown on foreigners who it said were in the country illegally. Neighboring Pakistan launched a similar campaign around the same time.
Iran's war with Israel, which started last Friday, is also forcing them to flee as Israeli strikes target the country.
Some 5,000 Afghans are returning daily through the Islam Qala crossing in western Herat province, according to the aid agency World Vision International.
There were people 'at risk, distressed, and in great need' among the 500,000 forcibly returned from Iran to Herat this year, the agency said.
'Many require support to find food and shelter, get hold of everyday essentials, and connect with their families before travelling to their hometowns or villages,' said Mark Calder, the agency's communications and advocacy director for Afghanistan. 'But they are returning to a country in which basic services are already in crisis.'
Swinging U.S. aid cuts and a shortfall in funding for humanitarian assistance have closed hundreds of health facilities and reduced other essential services like education.
The U.N. said Thursday that the Afghanistan Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan had received just 18% of its annual funding by June 19, disrupting the delivery of aid to millions, including women and children, returnees, refugees, displaced communities and other vulnerable and marginalized groups.
Calder warned that the number needing lifesaving aid could 'spiral further' if the international community did not look to support emergency needs and Afghans' efforts to start over in their homeland.
Ahmadullah Muttaqi, head of Herat's Refugee Information and Public Affairs Committee, on Friday told The Associated Press that before June 13 between 3,500 and 4,000 Afghans without documentation were entering the province daily because of Iran's deportation drive. This figure has doubled since the outbreak of the war.
Between 800 and 1,000 Afghans with passports were arriving in Herat every day before the war. This figure is now around 4,000, Muttaqi added.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Boston Globe
24 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
Israel to allow humanitarian airdrops over Gaza
The Israeli announcement followed rising international condemnation of the dire state of affairs in Gaza, with many countries — including some of Israel's traditional allies — holding the Israeli government responsible for the situation. Israel says it is doing everything it can to allow aid into the Palestinian enclave. 'The humanitarian catastrophe that we are witnessing in Gaza must end now,' the governments of Britain, France, and Germany said in a joint statement Friday. Advertisement The severity of the humanitarian crisis over 21 months of grinding war has led some Western nations, once sympathetic to Israel's actions in Gaza, to shift their stance toward the entrenched conflict. On Thursday, France said it would soon recognize an independent state of Palestine, adding its name to a growing list of European countries to do so. Starmer said in his address Friday that he was 'unequivocal' in his support of recognizing a Palestinian state but that it would need to be part of a 'wider plan, which ultimately results in a two-state solution and lasting security for Palestinians and Israelis.' Advertisement Experts criticized the planned airdrops as largely symbolic and warned that they were unlikely to provide enough aid to the roughly two million Palestinians in Gaza, who are in dire conditions after 21 months of war. Nearly one in three people in the territory is not eating for days at a time, according to the United Nations' World Food Program. Gaza health authorities say that acute malnutrition is rising and that children have died. Ordinary Palestinians in Gaza recount that basic goods like flour are sold for sky-high prices — or are not available at all. Doctors and health workers say their colleagues are struggling to keep working as they, too, go hungry. Major news agencies, including The Associated Press, said their employees in Gaza were less and less able to feed themselves. On Friday, the United Nations accused Israel of throwing up 'bureaucratic, logistical, administrative, and other operational obstacles' to the distribution of aid. Those restrictions compound other problems with getting food to hungry people, the UN's office of humanitarian affairs said in a statement, including attacks on convoys by armed criminals inside Gaza. 'Why use airdrops when you can drive hundreds of trucks through the borders?' said Juliette Touma, the chief spokesperson for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. 'It's much easier, more effective, faster, cheaper,' she added. Israeli officials say they have not limited the number of trucks entering the territory, and they say the UN has failed to distribute hundreds of truckloads' worth of food and other provisions from border crossings deeper into the Gaza Strip. Advertisement Ceasefire talks to end the war between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian armed group, have stalled. Many Gaza residents had hoped a truce would allow large amounts of food to flow freely into the enclave. But on Thursday, the Israeli government and the United States announced that they were recalling negotiators from Qatar, where they had held talks with Hamas. The announcement paused hopes for an immediate ceasefire, although Israeli and Hamas officials expressed optimism that the negotiations would soon resume. Throughout Israel's nearly two-year war with Hamas, Israeli authorities have permitted some aid drops, including by the United States. But UN officials have consistently argued that the best way to bring enough food into Gaza is by land, through borders controlled by Israel and Egypt. Israel permitted hundreds of trucks with aid to enter each day for several weeks during a ceasefire that lasted from January to March. But as further truce talks between Israel and Hamas sputtered to a halt, Israel barred practically all aid from entering the Gaza Strip for more than two months, including food, fuel, and medicine. Israeli authorities began allowing convoys into Gaza again in May. But relatively little assistance entered the Gaza Strip in June compared with other points during the war, according to official Israeli data. At least one recent attempt by the UN to bring food into Gaza led to chaotic scenes as Israeli soldiers shot at crowds of Palestinians rushing to seize bags of flour. Gaza health officials reported that dozens of people were killed and wounded. On Sunday, a 25-truck convoy operated by the World Food Program made its way into the Gaza Strip. Shortly after passing the final checkpoint into Gaza, the trucks encountered huge crowds of hungry Palestinians. Advertisement 'As the convoy approached, the surrounding crowd came under fire from Israeli tanks, snipers, and other gunfire,' the World Food Program said in a statement. 'These people were simply trying to access food to feed themselves and their families on the brink of starvation.' The Israeli military said its forces had fired 'warning shots' after thousands of Palestinians rushed the area. The military disputed the death toll provided by Gaza officials but did not provide an alternate figure. This article originally appeared in


New York Post
an hour ago
- New York Post
Sorry, New York: West Virginia won't clean up your climate mess
West Virginians mined the coal that forged the steel that built New York City. The Empire State Building, the Brooklyn Bridge, even the subway — none of these iconic landmarks would exist without the blood and sweat of West Virginia coal miners. West Virginia still powers the nation, supplementing its coal production with oil and natural gas. An overview of the city is seen on Wednesday, May 31, 2023, in Welch, McDowell County, West Virginia. AP But New York elites want to punish West Virginians for doing the very jobs that provide them so much comfort in their ivory towers. The Climate Change Superfund Act, which the Democrat-run state Legislature passed and Gov. Kathy Hochul signed into law in December, imposes liability on energy producers for doing just that — producing energy. It declares that carbon emissions cause climate change, and are therefore to blame for any and every undesirable weather condition the state faces. New York's state government has bungled disaster response time and again. Its politicians want someone to blame, and they chose the energy industry. They chose wrong. West Virginians don't back down. And we won't allow political elites to serve as judge, jury and executioner against the industry that employs thousands of West Virginia coal miners and gas and oil technicians and operators. New York's law imposes strict liability on any company producing a certain, arbitrary amount of carbon emissions, to be determined by the state Department of Environmental Conservation. Worse, the law targets past emissions, punishing producers retroactively for lawfully running their businesses. One World Trade Center rises amongst the downtown Manhattan skyline in New York City, U.S., July 22, 2025. REUTERS The DEC doesn't have to find fault. It doesn't have to file a lawsuit and convince a judge or jury that a particular energy producer caused specific harm to New York. No, the law declares energy producers to be automatically 'responsible' just because politicians say so. That's not justice, and it's not the rule of law. That's authoritarian bureaucrats picking winners and losers. And the losers will be many. The statute requires energy producers to pay $75 billion to the state of New York — money that could be spent on salaries and benefits for workers, or for new infrastructure projects to make everyone's energy more affordable. That $75 billion loss will cause three things: job loss, higher prices at the pump and higher utility bills — hurting hardworking Americans across the board, New Yorkers included. The only winners are the political elites who aim to bend America to their radical agenda, no matter the cost. Fortunately, the United States Constitution has something to say about this lawlessness. For starters, it prohibits any state from unduly regulating commerce in another state. West Virginia can't tell Idaho potato farmers how to harvest their spuds — and New York can't tell West Virginia energy companies how to mine coal or extract gas and oil. The Constitution also doesn't allow states to come up with their own regulatory schemes when the federal government has rules controlling specific conduct, especially in areas of unique federal interest. The US Environmental Protection Agency regulates greenhouse-gas emissions; New York doesn't have that power. So New York can't go back in time and penalize energy production in other states that the EPA said was lawful. In fact, a federal appellate court ruled against New York City when it tried to do much the same thing just a few years ago. On top of that, the law is simply unfair. Our country was founded on the principle of due process of law. Every citizen has the right to be heard, and every citizen has the right to conform their conduct to the law. New York's law takes away those rights. Imagine a state lowering the highway speed limit from 65 to 55 miles per hour — then ticketing you for going 65 last year. That's what this law does to energy producers, slammed with a staggering $75 billion fine by unelected backroom bureaucrats without any meaningful chance to defend themselves. It blatantly offends the Constitution and the fundamental sense of fairness that has existed in our country for 250 years. That's why I, along with 21 other state attorneys general, three energy trade associations and one energy company, have sued the New York politicians responsible for implementing the Climate Change Superfund Act. Our coalition is asking a federal court to issue an injunction stopping this unconstitutional overreach that would wreck our nation's power grid and put thousands of Americans out of work. New York's political elites may think they can seize control of America's energy industry, but we won't allow them to go unchecked. This is a fight for America's energy independence, for American jobs and for the rule of law. West Virginia won't go quietly. J.B. McCuskey is the attorney general of West Virginia.


Hamilton Spectator
an hour ago
- Hamilton Spectator
Canada to attend UN conference on Palestinian statehood
OTTAWA—The Canadian government has no immediate plans to join France in pledging to recognize a Palestinian state, but says it remains committed to a two-state solution as international outrage mounts over the worsening humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand will travel to New York on Monday for a United Nations conference on achieving a Palestinian state, which comes after French President Emmanuel Macron declared Thursday that his country would recognize Palestine in September, making France the first G7 nation to set out a clear timeline. A senior government official, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, told the Star the Carney government is not expecting to make a commitment to recognize a state of Palestine during the conference. Ottawa's position, they said, remains that Canada would recognize a Palestinian state led by the Palestinian Authority when it would be most conducive to a 'lasting peace.' They did not rule out the possibility of joining France by September's UN general assembly. Asked about Canada's position on Thursday, Anand suggested the Carney government's priority was on immediately ending the war in Gaza, where civilians face mass starvation due to Israeli blockades, and negotiations for a ceasefire and the release of Israeli hostages remain at a standstill. 'I believe that the importance for Canadians is to ensure that humanitarian aid flows, to ensure that the hostages are released and to ensure that Hamas lays down its weapons so that Israelis and Palestinians can live in peace and security, side by side. That's Canada's position,' Anand told reporters in Inuvik, N.W.T. 'In terms of comparable positions or the positions of my counterparts, that's a conversation that I will have in person when I travel to New York and meet with them next week.' In a statement on Thursday, Prime Minister Mark Carney accused Israel of violating international law for failing to allow aid into the Gaza Strip, as he called on its government to give control of the distribution of humanitarian aid to the United Nations. Carney also said Canada will 'work intensively' toward the advancement of a two-state solution 'which guarantees peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians.' Macron's announcement was condemned by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said the move 'rewards terror.' U.S. President Donald Trump also dismissed France's declaration, telling reporters Friday that it 'doesn't carry weight.' In a statement, Israeli Foreign Affairs Minister Gideon Sa'ar said he told Anand on Friday that France's move 'will only push Israel to take steps of its own,' and that it 'harms the chances of achieving a hostage deal and ceasefire.' Anand said on social media that she had also spoken with the Palestinian Authority's foreign minister on Friday. France and Saudi Arabia are co-hosting next week's meeting of diplomats, where they are expected to urge Western states to join them in recognizing a Palestinian state. A majority of UN member states already do so, but no other G7 country has so far said it would follow France's lead. The United States is boycotting the conference, and the Trump administration has warned its allies not to attend.