Afghans given Sunday deadline amid concerns over security after conflict with Israel, but humanitarian groups warn that mass deportations could further destabilise Afghanistan.
Millions of Afghan migrants and refugees in Iran have been asked to leave or face arrest as a deadline set by the government comes to an end.
Sunday’s target date neared amid public concerns over security in the aftermath of the 12-day conflict with Israel, which the United States joined with air strikes on Iran’s uranium-enrichment facilities.
But humanitarian organisations warned that mass deportations could further destabilise Afghanistan, one of the world’s most impoverished nations. Iran is home to an estimated 4 million Afghan migrants and refugees, and many have lived there for decades.
In 2023, Tehran launched a campaign to expel foreigners it said were living in the country “illegally”. In March, the Iranian government ordered that Afghans without the right to remain should leave voluntarily by Sunday or face expulsion.
Since then, more than 700,000 Afghans have left, and hundreds of thousands of others face expulsion. More than 230,000 departed in June alone, the United Nations International Organization for Migration said.
The government has denied targeting Afghans, who have fled their homeland to escape war, poverty and Taliban rule.
Batoul Akbari, a restaurant owner, told Al Jazeera that Afghans living in Tehran were hurt by “anti-Afghan sentiment”, adding that it was heartbreaking to see “people sent away from the only home they have ever known”.
“Being born in Iran gives us the feeling of having two homelands,” Akbari said. “Our parents are from Afghanistan, but this is what we’ve always known as home.”
Mohammad Nasim Mazaheri, a student whose family had to leave Iran, agreed: “The deportations have torn families apart.”
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimated that Iran deported more than 30,000 Afghans on average each day during the war with Israel, up from about 2,000 earlier.
“We have always striven to be good hosts, but national security is a priority, and naturally, illegal nationals must return,” Iranian government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani said on Tuesday.
Late last month, the UNHCR said, of the 1.2 million returning Afghans, more than half had come from Iran after its government set its deadline on March 20.
“They are coming in buses, and sometimes, five buses arrive at one time with families and others, and the people are let out of the bus, and they are simply bewildered, disoriented and tired and hungry as well,” Arafat Jamal, the UNHCR representative in Afghanistan said as he described the scene at a border crossing.
“This has been exacerbated by the war, but I must say it has been part of an underlying trend that we have seen of returns from Iran, some of which are voluntary, but a large portion were also deportations.”
Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar, reporting from Tehran, said Afghans have increasingly been blamed for economic hardships, shortages and social issues in Iran.
“These accusations have been fuelled by political rhetoric and social media campaigns following 12 days of conflict between Iran and Israel and claims that Israel has recruited Afghans as spies,” he said.