Afghanistan’s Refugees Facing Challenges in Iran

Four decades have passed since the presence of millions of Afghanistan’s citizens in Iran. Refugees still face many challenges in Iran. Getting deported, not having access to school, difficulty in renewing a visa, buying a SIM card, using the Internet and opening a bank account are among the major challenges faced by these refugees in Iran. These refugees want the Iranian government to solve their problems. A request that has been raised many times, but has not had a positive result.
The Iranian government’s refusal to extend the visas of Afghan immigrants, not giving them a driver’s license and the doubling of education fees are some of the other things that have made it difficult for Afghan nationals to live in Iran.
Furthermore, some other Afghan nationals living in Iran talk about the exorbitant cost of education. “Even though Iran receives millions or billions of dollars annually for supporting Afghan immigrants from the United Nations and other countries, it does not reach the refugees in return for this aid,” Faisal, an Afghan youth in Iran, says. “Every day, immigrants are either rejected at the border or insulted and humiliated. At all, their behavior is contrary to their claims on media.”
The government of Iran has always talked about providing a safe and pleasant environment for Afghan refugees and has rejected mistreatment of Afghan nationals. All this is while Iran hosted three and a half to four million Afghan refugees in the past years, but after the return of the Taliban to power, this country has faced a new wave of Afghan refugees. Due to poverty, unemployment, fear of Taliban and insecurity, tens of thousands of Afghan citizens leave Afghanistan every day and reach other countries including Iran.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollihan said that after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, about one million Afghan refugees have entered Iran. With this description, now the number of Afghan refugees in Iran has reached five million. Most of these immigrants entered Iran through smuggling and do not have travel documents. Some of these immigrants enter Iran with the intention of reaching Europe and going to Turkey and spend a short time in Iran.