Washington â€" The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Afghanistan and the United States have appealed to Iran to safeguard undocumented Afghan migrants during deportations from that country. “The United States is concerned that a large influx of Afghan migrants is increasing the need for humanitarian assistance in western Afghanistan,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told journalists May 21.
(Media-Newswire.com) - Washington – The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees ( UNHCR ), Afghanistan and the United States have appealed to Iran to safeguard undocumented Afghan migrants during deportations from that country.
“The United States is concerned that a large influx of Afghan migrants is increasing the need for humanitarian assistance in western Afghanistan,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told journalists May 21. He added that the United States “supports the UNHCR and the government of Afghanistan in their calls to ensure that Afghans living and working illegally in Iran are deported in a gradual, orderly and humane manner.”
Iran forcibly has returned more than 55,000 Afghans to Afghanistan since April, according to the UNHCR. Abrupt relocations in which deportees are not given time to pack belongings, and are detained and transported without provision for basic needs have raised concerns. Some refugees report physical abuse by Iranian police.
Once in Afghanistan, the deportees face new trials. Left in provinces along the Afghan-Iranian border, many must travel where battles rage between Taliban and NATO forces, and civilians are often casualties.
U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan ( UNAMA ) spokesman Adrian Edwards deplored attacks on convoys bearing humanitarian aid supplies. “We call upon those responsible to immediately halt these acts, which are robbing Afghanistan of badly needed aid,” he said at a briefing in Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, May 21. According to the latest UNAMA figures, 70,000 individuals have passed through transit centers in Herat, a western Afghan province bordering on Iran.
The government of Afghanistan coordinates aid from the UNHCR, the Afghan Red Crescent Society, the World Food Program and the International Organization for Migration to bring essential supplies to the deportees.
Large numbers of Afghans, many undocumented, reside in Iran and Pakistan, forced there during decades of political unrest. Both countries have made efforts to repatriate Afghans over the years. According to the UNHCR, about 920,000 Afghans are legally registered in Iran.
Recurrent war and factional violence have blurred the lines between economic and political refugee status, according to J. Alexander Thier, senior adviser at the United States Institute of Peace. He told USINFO that although Iran and Pakistan see Afghans as economic migrants, the upsurge of violence in Afghanistan in the past 18 months could well make some of them legitimate political refugees “because it does become dangerous to go back.”
In contrast to Pakistan, where people are kept in camps and given sufficient time and assistance packages before being repatriated, in Iran they simply have been “rounded up” without notice, Thier told USINFO.
Thier speculated that economic reasons may be behind Iran’s push to deport Afghans, judging from recent accounts of economic problems and unemployment in Iran. He said Afghans often take low-level jobs there. “Economic impacts in Iran could very much be affecting the willingness and desire of the Iranians to tolerate the continued presence of the Afghans,” he said.
“In fairness to the Iranian and the Pakistani governments, who have hosted these refugees for, in some cases, upwards of 25 years, they are struggling with how to require that the refugees who can go home, do go home,” Thier said. Many Afghans have made new lives in their adopted countries. “[T]he refugees don’t have the desire to go back for economic or other reasons that are not just the security reasons that justify refugee status.”
Besides exacerbating an already difficult humanitarian situation in parts of Afghanistan, Thier said, a new flood of people strains damaged infrastructure. Most returnees go to cities that are ill-equipped to handle the numbers. There is insufficient housing. There is unemployment. “It creates a lot of social pressures, and those social pressures in an environment like Afghanistan, which is somewhat volatile, is not a positive thing,” he said.
But there is a “potentially positive” upshot of the returning migration, he said.
“[P]eople returning, particularly from Iran, often tend to have a higher level of education and skills from having worked, for instance, in a construction industry,” at a time when “Afghanistan’s human capital has been so depleted.”
“But a rapid influx is, I think, quite difficult for Afghanistan’s very weak infrastructure to handle,” Thier said.
For more information on U.S. policies, see Rebuilding Afghanistan and Humanitarian Assistance and Refugees.
Related Content
Release Date
This story was released on 2007-05-24. Please make sure to visit the official company or organization web site to learn more about the original release date. See our disclaimer for additional information.