Afghans return from Iran due to economic crisis — Jerusalem Post
Thousands of Afghan citizens are returning from Iran because of an economic crisis that has worsened amid Iran’s conflict with the United States and Israel. At the Islam Qala border crossing in Afghanistan’s Herat province, migrants undergo document checks and registration after returning to a country where Taliban authorities significantly restrict women’s rights.
As the Jerusalem Post reports, Reuters journalists spoke over the course of a week with people who had returned from Iran to border areas of Herat and Farah provinces. Most of them said that before leaving, they had been without work for months and could not cope with rapidly rising inflation.
Inflation and loss of savings
According to Iran’s Statistical Center, consumer prices rose by nearly 90% year on year, while food inflation reached almost 130%. The publication links the worsening situation to tighter sanctions and the U.S. naval blockade, which has made Iran virtually unable to export oil through the Strait of Hormuz.
The International Organization for Migration reported that only 29% of Afghans who recently returned from Iran retained any savings. Their average income fell by nearly a third compared with the pre-crisis level. An Afghan man, Mohammad Said, said that his family’s savings in Iranian rials had lost more than two-thirds of their value.
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According to the UN Refugee Agency, more than 2 million Afghans have left Iran over the past two years. Most of them were deported or forced to leave by Iranian authorities before the latest wave of returns. At the same time, the number of women and entire families among those now returning has increased.
Families return to Afghanistan
Abdul Ghani Kazizada, a senior official in the Taliban administration at the border, said that between 20 and 40 families, including women and girls, voluntarily return from Iran every day. According to him, Afghan workers also complain about wages withheld by employers.
Forty-four-year-old Abdul Jabbar, who had lived in Iran for nearly four decades, returned to Afghanistan with his wife, two daughters, grandson and mother after missile strikes near a military base in Kerman and the loss of his job. Two months after returning, he remained unemployed, while his family lived in a one-room mud-brick house.
Rezwana Jami and her son Said resumed pizza cheese production in Afghanistan after returning, using their last savings for kitchen equipment. Jami said that her 17-year-old daughter is struggling with the loss of the opportunity to continue her education: Taliban rules prohibit girls from receiving education after the sixth grade and from studying at universities.
