Iran
Afghans ride in pickup trucks along a desert road in Nimroz towards the Afghanistan-Iran border on February 17, 2022. Photo: AFP
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - October’s deadly earthquakes, the Taliban’s return to power, and economic hardship have pushed hundreds of thousands of Afghans to cross the border into neighboring Iran, prompting anger and violence from the Iranian public, which is struggling with its own crumbling economy.
Several anti-Afghan campaigns have been launched across Iranian social media platforms in recent months in reaction to the recent influx of people entering Iran and there have been several instances of abuse and physical attacks.
Forty-eight-year-old Nusrat and her family sought refuge in Iran around 15 years ago, forced out of their home in northern Afghanistan’s Mazar-i-Sharif by war and economic instability. Life in Iran has always been difficult for them.
“We were working at half the price of Iranian workers. Even back then they were taunting and ridiculing us,” Nusrat told Rudaw English earlier this month.
After her husband’s death from cancer two years ago, Nusrat was left to care for their four children alone, cleaning houses and working other low-paying jobs just to put food on the table and pay the rent.
There are over five million displaced Afghans in Iran. They crossed the border in waves of migration during times of crisis, including the Soviet invasion in 1979, the fall of the Afghan government and rise of the Taliban in the 1990s, the US invasion in 2001, and the Taliban’s return to power in 2021.
On October 6, dozens of enraged young Iranian men armed with sticks attacked houses in Qazvin province’s Eqbaliyeh city. The area in the northwest of the country is home to a large community from Afghanistan. The protesters demanded the Afghans leave the country.
Nusrat’s home was one of the houses attacked.
“I would have never believed they would assault us like that… They broke our windows while chanting ‘Afghans out!’ My children were terrified. My youngest daughter who is in first grade has not been able to fall asleep since out of fear, and my other three children have not gone back to school,” she said.
Nusrat has also been told by the families she was working for that they could no longer employ her out of concerns for her safety.
“They act like we are trying to invade their country… We are still slaves here. We do the jobs that they do not do. We do them for low pay. The only difference between here and our country is that we do not die of hunger or explosions,” she lamented.
Artists, journalists, and activists have led campaigns warning against the growing anti-Afghan sentiment and called for an end to persecution of the community.
“The acts committed against the helpless Afghan refugees in recent days are cruel and whitewashed Nazism and apartheid,” Hawzhin Latifi, an activist from Sanandaj, told Rudaw English. “How could this happen in this day and age?”
The new Afghan arrivals in Iran are entering a country that is struggling with its own economic woes and a shrinking job market. Iranians trying to eke out a living are blaming Afghans for their troubles.
“I do not support harming the refugees, but the arrival of the Afghans and their working for low wages have truly impacted our work. You need to make at least 50,000 tomans (10 dollars) on a daily basis in Iran if you want to provide for yourself and your family. The Afghans do it at half that price, and business-owners make more profit by employing them over Iranian workers,” Hamid, a 45-year-old laborer, told Rudaw English.
Iran’s Interior Minister Ahmed Vahidi on Thursday said that Tehran will expel all “illegal” Afghans from the country, while at the same time condemning the anti-Afghan campaigns and labeling them as “wrong.”
In August, Iran announced that 224,000 undocumented Afghans had been deported in the previous four months.
Written and Translated by Chenar Chalak
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