Afghan Refugees Expelled from Iran and Exposed to Horrific Abuse

Amir Saeid Iravani (left), Permanent Representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran, speaks at the Security Council meeting on the situation in Afghanistan. Credit: UN Photo/Evan Schneider

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 11 2025 (IPS)

Since early June, Afghan refugees in Iran have endured increasingly harsh humanitarian conditions, with many being forced to repatriate under conditions that violate the principles of international humanitarian law. In 2025 alone, over one million refugees have returned to Afghanistan, further stretching the limited supply of resources amid a severe and multifaceted humanitarian crisis.

As of 2025, it is estimated that Iran is home to approximately 4 million Afghan refugees and migrants, with many having lived there for decades. Iran’s capital, Tehran, hosts a significant portion of the nation’s undocumented Afghan refugees and in 2023, announced plans to expel them.

The most recent movement by Afghan refugees was triggered when, on June 13, Israel launched a series of airstrikes on military and nuclear facilities in Iran. Tehran was hit particularly hard and its population of highly vulnerable Afghan refugees began to flee toward Afghanistan. According to figures from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), daily returns of Afghan refugees spiked after these attacks, averaging roughly 5,000 arrivals per day. On July 1, Afghanistan saw its highest daily number of arrivals, with approximately 43,000 returnees recorded.

“Many are returning to a country they barely know, forced out of Iran after decades of living there,” said Arafat Jamal, UNHCR’s Representative in Afghanistan. “The recent Israel-Iran war accelerated their return, pushing numbers to a record high, while deep funding cuts have made humanitarian aid operations increasingly challenging.”

Additionally, movement toward Afghanistan was accelerated following Tehran’s imposition of a July 6 deadline for all undocumented Afghan refugees to leave Iran. Additional figures from UNHCR show over 640,000 Afghan refugees having returned since March 20, with over 366,000 of them having been deported.

According to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the sharp increase in deportations of Afghan refugees can be attributed to the rise of political tensions and “anti-Afghan sentiment” in Iran. Humanitarian experts have expressed concern that there is a severe protection crisis along the Afghanistan-Iran border, with many of these returns being facilitated under hostile or involuntary circumstances.

Sahar, an Afghan widow and mother of five who resided in Iran for over a decade, spoke to Zan Times, an Afghan news agency, about the conditions that her family faced when they were being deported. “I didn’t even get to pack [my children’s] clothes. [The Iranian authorities] 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 said.

“Iran is casting out entire communities—men, women, and children—based on prejudice and politics, to a country where their lives and most basic rights are under immediate threat,” said Esfandiar Aban, a senior researcher at the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI). “These deportations are an egregious violation of international law. All migrants and refugees, regardless of documentation status, have the right to due process and protection against forced return to danger.”

Alongside hundreds of deportation cases, Afghan refugees have reported facing harassment, discrimination, and pressure to return to Afghanistan. According to figures from UN Women, roughly 53 percent of a sample size of 119,417 Afghan refugees studied in June reported their main reason for leaving Iran was due to feeling unsafe.

In a statement shared to X (formerly known as Twitter), the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on Afghanistan Richard Bennett reports that hundreds of Afghan refugees and other ethnic minorities in Iran were arrested and accused of espionage. Bennett also underscores the “dehumanizing” language used in Iranian media to incite discrimination and violence toward Afghan refugees.

Additionally, there have been numerous reports of Afghan refugees being exposed to a variety of abuses during the repatriation process, including arrests, violence, and harassment. Saeid Dehgan, an Iranian human rights lawyer and director of the Parsi Law Collective, informed reporters that, “given the scale, violence, and systemic nature of these deportations — particularly if combined with beatings, property confiscation, and arbitrary detention — there may be grounds to consider them as potential crimes against humanity.”

There is a severe shortage of access to basic services and humanitarian aid for the majority of these refugees, making living conditions across the border particularly dire.” Said Jamal. “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.”

Food, water, shelter, protection, and healthcare services are scarce and there is not enough staff to sustainably support aid operations. The current supply of funding is dwindling at a rapid rate while thousands of Afghan refugees come in on a daily basis. UNHCR estimates that unless additional funding is secured soon, they will only be able to continue operations for a few more weeks.

According to CHRI, the forced return of refugees to Afghanistan constitutes violations of the non-refoulement principle, which prohibits a government from exposing peoples to “torture, persecution, or serious human rights violations.”

Currently, Afghanistan is in the midst of a dire humanitarian crisis, marked by the oppressive rule of the Taliban regime. Women’s rights are severely restricted, with the vast majority unable to hold jobs, move freely, pursue education, and represent themselves in governmental affairs. Additionally, the country faces numerous security concerns as well as rampant poverty.

“For most Afghans, deportation is not a return home—it is a descent into crisis, into a country ravaged by war and repression,” Aban said. “For Afghan women and girls, it’s even worse. They are being sent back to a regime that has erased them from public life. This is not just a deportation—this is a death sentence for their freedom, their education, their futures.”

IPS UN Bureau Report