Iran Deported 20,000 Afghan Children Last Year, Taliban Say
Last year, Iran deported over 20,000 Afghan children, many of whom have been sent back unaccompanied and without any guardians waiting for them, Afghan authorities stated.
Last year, Iran deported over 20,000 Afghan children, many of whom have been sent back unaccompanied and without any guardians waiting for them, Afghan authorities stated.
"Around 30 to 40 children without guardians are deported from Iran every day… Last year, 20,000 expelled children were registered with us," Mohammad Haroon Wahedi, who heads migrant affairs in the Nimroz Province bordering Iran, told Afghan news outlet TOLOnews.
Atiqullah, a 12-year-old Afghan boy recently deported from Iran, confirmed this to TOLOnews, stating that Iranian authorities expelled him without his family. "Out of necessity, I went to Iran to work. I was busy working in a bakery, where I would take four or six loaves of bread home daily,” he said.
Mohammad, another child who was deported, said, “On the way to Iran, I was caught and transferred to Afghanistan, and now I have no money and don't know what to do.”
Just 3,000 of the children deported from Iran were reunited with their families across various provinces in Afghanistan, according to Alauddin Amiri, the head of labor at the Directorate of Labor and Social Affairs in Nimroz province.
Zubair, another young deported child, said: "We went to Iran due to economic problems... but the Iranian government arrested me, and I want the United Nations to cooperate with us".
Momen, another deported child, echoed Zubair's sentiment, saying that he simply wants to return home to his family. They called for financial assistance from both the government and the United Nations.
According to Alauddin Amiri, the head of labor at the Directorate of Labor and Social Affairs in Nimroz, "In the past year, we have been able to transfer nearly 3,000 unaccompanied children who were sent from Iran to Nimroz to their families in different provinces."
While the exact number hasn't been independently verified, the Iranian authorities recent actions support the claims.
Earlier this week, the Iranian Interior Ministry issued a directive – saying that it can no longer accept new Afghan arrivals due to the economic crisis and rising public discontent over the increasing number of Afghan migrants, both documented and undocumented. The directive called for all illegal Afghan migrants to leave or face deportation.
On March 21, the IRGC-affiliated Tasnim News Agency reported the initiation of a police plan aimed at gathering and deporting unauthorized immigrants from recreational areas in Tehran Province.
Painting a grim picture for Afghan migrants, Zahra Azizi, an Afghan journalist living in Tehran, told Radio Azadi -- the Afghan branch of Radio Free Europe -- that migrants are now “not even given bread when they go to bakeries, even the census papers of some of them have been torn up by the police, and hospitals charge Afghan migrants two or three times more money because they do not have insurance.”
Afghanistan's history of migration, especially to neighboring countries like Iran and Pakistan, has often accelerated due to conflicts including the civil war that began in the late 20th century.
But once the migrants arrive in their new destinations, especially in Iran, they face significant challenges regarding residency, education, and employment.
Reports of the detention and expulsion of foreign nationals from Iran have become increasingly common in recent months. Although these reports often do not specify the nationalities of those affected, it is widely understood that a significant portion are Afghan citizens.
The influx of Afghan migrants into Iran has sparked debate among citizens and officials alike, with differing opinions on whether their presence poses a threat or an opportunity for the regime.
Estimates of the Afghan diaspora population in Iran vary, with precise figures challenging to ascertain due to the reluctance of Afghans to participate in official counts and registrations.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz says Israel has not taken responsibility for the attack that killed seven top Iranian Revolutionary Guard commanders, but in his Eid al-Fitr sermon on Wednesday, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei held Israel responsible and promised retaliation.
Iranian officials and media have largely been silent on Friday over the prospects of a retaliation, but after reports of an attack being imminent, Khamenei’s X account retweeted the same remarks without further comments.
Two US officials told CBS News that a major Iranian attack against Israel was expected as soon as Friday, possibly to include more than 100 drones and dozens of missiles aimed at military targets inside the country. The White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby also said on Friday that an Iranian strike on Israel was possible.
Most analysts believe the Israeli strike on the Damascus embassy that the Iranian regime calls “Iranian soil” has left no other choice for the Islamic Republic than to strike back as a matter of principle and honor.
“They will retaliate but will try to keep Israelis on their toes and perplex them as long as they can before initiating an attack,” an analyst in Iran who requested anonymity told Iran International.
“For instance, they may deploy a hundred missiles to one location in the country, then move them to another. Or put their forces in a state of high alert in one place, then rescind the decision without explanation, or move them to another location,” he added.
Reports from Israel Friday indicated that Iran's use of this psychological warfare tactic has already made a lot of Israelis very nervous.
Iran International’s correspondent Babak Itzhaki in Jerusalem reported on Friday that the feeling is prevalent in Israel that the Islamic Republic and Israel’s exchange of threats and warnings has reached a final point and caused worry to the public.
Rather than preparing to get together for Sabbath as they always do, Israeli families are staying home to remain close to their safe rooms, he says, adding that municipalities are preparing themselves for some sort of attack and have been ordered to open up shelters to people if Iran's threats materialize although new instructions have not been issued so far for extra measures.
A source in Tehran told Iran International that while people are preoccupied with various local issues and controversies, the looming threat of escalation, potentially culminating in an Israeli attack on Iran, is a cause for concern. Their primary worry revolves around the potential further rise of the US dollar in Tehran and the subsequent increase in the severity of their living conditions. The Iranian currency, the rial, has depreciated by 30 percent since early January, exacerbating inflation, which is already hovering around 50 percent.
Iranian sources and diplomats from the US say Tehran has signaled to Washington that it wishes to avoid escalation and will not act hastily, Reuters reported.
“Iran wanted condemnation of Israel’s attack on the Iranian embassy by the United States, western countries and the United Nations Security Council as Foreign Minister Hossein Amir- Abdollahian pointed out,” the Iranian analyst said, adding that the only way for the Islamic Republic to hold off an attack and not to lose face is getting a big concession. “They may be maneuvering now to increase the price of holding off an attack on Israeli soil,” he added.
Iran has already begun exhibiting its preparations. According to the semi-official Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) which cited the Army, the air defense chief of northern Iran, Brigadier General Amir-Mohammad Sadeghian, on Friday inspected “the combat readiness, equipment, and response protocols” of the force.
"It's going to be very difficult for Iran not to retaliate," Raz Zimmt, senior researcher at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies also told Reuters.
"I still believe that Iran doesn't want to engage in full-scale, direct military confrontation against Israel, and certainly not with the United States. But it has to do something," he added.
Follow developments on Iran International's Live coverage of ongoing tensions between Iran and Israel.
Describing the attack on the Asociacion Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) Jewish center as a “crime against humanity,” Argentina’s Court of Cassation deemed Iran and its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah, responsible for the bombing and declared Iran a “terrorist state.”
In 1992, a bomb attack on the Israeli embassy left 29 dead. Two years later, a truck loaded with explosives drove into the AMIA Jewish center and detonated, leaving 85 dead and 300 injured – the deadliest terror act in Argentina’s history.
“The significance of these grave human rights violations for the international community as a whole invokes a state’s duty to provide judicial protection,” the ruling said.
The court also highlighted the role of the Iran-backed Shiite militia group Hezbollah for the attack. "Hezbollah carried out an operation that responded to a political, ideological and revolutionary design under the mandate of a government, of a State," Carlos Mahiques, one of the three judges who issued the decision, told Radio Con Vos, referring to Iran.
According to court documents cited by local media, the attacks came in retaliation for Argentina reneging on a nuclear cooperation deal with Tehran. Argentina canceled three contracts in the mid-1980s that would have supplied Tehran with nuclear technology.
The AMIA attack has never been claimed by any group or solved, but Argentina and Israel have long suspected Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah group carried it out at Iran's orders. In 2006, Argentinian courts pressed charges against eight present and former high-ranking Iranian officials, alongside a Lebanese national, in connection with the attack. Interpol arrest warrants for the convicted officials have led nowhere.
Citing confidential intelligence reports, the court directly implicated top Iranian officials and commanders of the Revolutionary Guard in the bombings.
In 2007, Interpol General Assembly upheld the unanimous decision made by the organization’s Executive Committee to publish six out of nine Red Notices requested in connection with the AMIA.
The notices were requested by the Argentinean National Central Bureau (NCB) for Imad Fayez Moughnieh, the number two in Iran-backed Hezbollah, Iran’s Former Intelligence Minister Ali Fallahian, Cleric Mohsen Rabbani – known as the chief architect of Iran's Latin American missionary network -- Iranian diplomat Ahmad Reza Asghari – aka Hamid-Reza Es’hagi and Moshen Ranjbaran. Revolutionary Guards commander and incumbent Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi as well as President Ebrahim Raisi’s former vice president for economic affairs, Revolutionary Guard’s commander Mohsen Rezaei (Rezai), were also among them.
Argentina has the largest Jewish community in Latin America, with some 300,000 members. It also is home to immigrant communities from the Middle East, particularly from Syria and Lebanon.
The ruling of the Thursday court session was welcomed by the president of the Delegation of Israelite Associations of Argentina (DAIA), Jorge Knoblovits. He told Radio Mitre the ruling "is very important, because it enables the victims to go to the International Criminal Court."
Past inquiries into the bombings have turned up indictments, not just against Iranian officials but also two former Argentine presidents. In 2015, the chief prosecutor in the case was mysteriously found dead in his bathroom the day before he was to go public with claims that top Argentine officials had conspired with Iran to cover up responsibility for the bombing.
Former Argentine president Carlos Menem, who died in 2021 and was the president at the time of both attacks, was tried for covering up the AMIA bombing, but ultimately acquitted. His former intelligence chief Hugo Anzorreguy was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in jail for his role in obstructing the probe. Along with a dozen other defendants, he faced a multitude of corruption and obstruction of justice charges in the case. Among them was Juan Jose Galeano, the former judge who led the investigation into the attack. In 2019, Galeano was jailed for six years for concealing and tampering with evidence.