31 August 2022|3 Safar 1444
A new Amnesty International report has found that Afghan refugees have consistently come under fire while trying to cross into Iran and Turkey in the year since the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan.
The report, ‘They Don’t Treat Us Like Humans,’ consists of interviews with 74 Afghans who had been pushed back by border forces and officials in both nations. More than half reported coming under fire by border guards.
Amnesty’s findings fall in line with reports in Afghan media as well as the personal accounts of Afghans in Kabul and Istanbul shared with the MEE over the last year. In February, officials in the Afghan provinces of Nimroz and Herat — both of which border Iran — told local media that hundreds of Afghans had faced physical violence when trying to enter Iran.
In Nimroz, which is a major hub for the smuggling of undocumented people and goods, officials said that nearly 100 Afghans have been shot dead by Iranian forces. Amnesty was able to verify 11 such killings that took place between April 2021 and January 2022. The youngest identified case was a 16-year-old boy.
Amnesty said the lack of official statistics means their count is very likely to be an underestimation of the violence Afghans face when trying to enter or travel through Iran. The London-based rights group says that humanitarian workers and Afghan doctors recorded at least 59 deaths and 31 injuries between August and December 2021 alone.
“The true death toll is likely to be significantly higher,” the report said.
A refugee rights worker in Europe, who could not be identified due to the nature of his job, agrees with Amnesty’s assessment, saying despite getting hundreds of calls for help a week, he is rarely told directly about physical violence by the authorities in countries they are trying to enter.
“These people are afraid, they’ve been traumatized, so they’re afraid to reveal too much about their experiences.”
This fear, said the refugee worker, is likely to keep many Afghans saying outright the violence and intimidation they were likely to face in Iran or Turkey.
Saif Afghan, a 24-year-old Afghan refugee from the Northern province of Balkh, said he saw the violence of Iranian border forces firsthand last winter.
“As soon as you got close to the Iranian side of the border, their Police would start shooting directly at people. It was very clear that they were aiming at the actual people, this wasn’t just aerial fire,” Afghan told the Middle East Eye from the city of Mazar-e Sharif.
“They were targeting the people, absolutely,” Afghan said.
Source MIDDLE EAST EYE
