Afghan refugees ‘flee in thousands to Iran every day’
Group warns Europe of crisis if influx continues and calls for more efforts to offer hope and care
Thousands of Afghan refugees are fleeing the Taliban into neighbouring Iran every day and the trend may eventually become a crisis for Europe, a top aid official has said.
Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), visited refugees this week around Kerman province in eastern Iran close to the Afghanistan border. He warned Europe could be affected if the influx into Iran continued.
Speaking in the capital Tehran at the end of his trip, Egeland said more needed to be done to provide hope, food and care for Afghans fleeing the Taliban.
“Many Afghan refugees called their relatives telling them they are on their way to Iran and many want to go on to Europe, so Europe should be less occupied with a few thousand [refugees] sitting on the Polish-Belarusian border.
“More people came today to Iran than are now on that border,” he added.
More than 120,000 Americans, Afghans and others were flown out of Afghanistan during a massive airlift operation in the days after the capital of Kabul fell to the Taliban on August 15. But thousands more were left behind, with many fleeing to the borders and seeking help from aid agencies.
An estimated 300,000 have fled to Iran since the Taliban takeover, according to the NRC.
“There is no economy, there is very little assistance, and there is too little shelter and food for millions and millions in need,” Egeland said.
He said as the winter arrived, and there were not enough shelters for refugees in Afghanistan, more would enter Iran. “We expect this to become even more acute as hundreds of thousands are coming to the border between Afghanistan and Iran. Winter will be horrific in Afghanistan.”
The secretary general urged wealthy countries to immediately scale up their aid contributions, both inside Afghanistan and in neighbouring nations, before the deadly winter cold.
According to the NRC, between 4,000 and 5,000 Afghans are fleeing into Iran each day through informal border crossings.
It said Iran had supported those Afghans, in addition to hundreds of thousands of others who had been sheltering in the country for much longer – some for decades.
During his trip to Kerman province, Egeland met some of the refugees and he said the 3.5 million Afghan migrants already in Iran were struggling as a result of US sanctions on Iran.
Iran’s interior minister Ahmad Vahidi on Tuesday said Iran had several thousand people at its border with Afghanistan every day. He, too, warned a fresh wave of refugees might attempt to go to Europe if help was not delivered.
Iran and Afghanistan have three border crossings along a 945km common border.
Egeland praised Iran for hosting millions of Afghans for the past four decades and said the international community must now step up and show support.
“How can you expect Iran to shoulder this responsibility on their own?” he said.
“What Europe should do is invest in hope, possibility, opportunity inside Afghanistan and in the neighbouring countries if they want to avoid people wandering towards Europe.”