Iran’s harrowing drive to deport Afghan refugees

This story is published in collaboration with Zan Times, a women-led investigative newsroom that covers human rights in Afghanistan, with a focus on women and the LGBTQ community. 

IN THE EARLY HOURS of 30 June 2025, Shir Mohammad woke up to the sound of Iranian police kicking in his door. “They stormed the room, beat us with their boots, and dragged us outside without warning,” he recalled, standing in a dusty refugee reception centre in the border town Islam Qala in Afghanistan’s Herat province. Mohammad had crossed into Iran from Baghlan province in northeastern Afghanistan ten months earlier, fleeing the economic collapse that followed the Taliban’s takeover in 2021. Like millions of others, he hoped to find work in Iran and send money home. Instead, he was detained, abused and deported with empty hands.

Since March 2025, more than 717,000 Afghan refugees and migrants have been forcibly deported from Iran, according to Iranian officials. The Afghan arm of the International Organization for Migration says the total number of people deported in 2025 has already crossed one million. The campaign has intensified in recent months, targeting undocumented Afghans and also those holding temporary census slips that granted them recognition of their refugee status and access to essential services, which were abruptly cancelled by the Iranian government.

Accounts from Afghan returnees reveal a pattern of systematic abuse, detention without due process and torture while in custody. Among those deported are women who were the sole providers for their families or were travelling alone, and who face an impossible situation in Afghanistan. Upon return, they are subject to the Taliban’s edicts that restrict their freedom of movement without a mahram (a close male relative), cannot receive higher education and cannot work outside their homes. 

Afghan families are navigating growing hostility, scapegoating, systemic neglect and violence while being forcibly returned to Afghanistan. Although Pakistan’s similar deportation campaign has received more media coverage, Iran’s actions are larger in scale, quieter in execution, and arguably more brutal. According to Afghan and international observers, the combined effect of both countries’ deportation drives has created a humanitarian emergency that the Taliban government is ill-equipped to handle.

After his arrest, Shir Mohammad was transferred to the infamous Tapeh Tambaku camp near Tehran. “We were packed into rooms without air. They gave one small portion of boiled rice for every two people,” he said. “There was no water. People collapsed in the heat. I saw them beating three Afghans who died as the result of the beating. I saw one of their bodies carried out in front of my eyes.”

A 22-year-old returnee from Baghlan described a similar ordeal. “One of the people who died in front of us was around 28 years old. They beat him severely, and then took his body away. I don’t know where they took it,” he told Himal Southasian. “Several others collapsed and died from the extreme heat. The police came and dragged their bodies away. I don’t know if they threw them in the garbage or took them somewhere else.”

The Baghlan returnee had migrated to Iran alone to save money for university and had only been there for three months when he was arrested in the middle of the night on 3 July. “I saw another man in the Tapeh Tambaku camp who was eating when the police came and struck him on the head. He lost consciousness and became unresponsive. They dragged him out too, and I don’t know what happened to him.”