RASC News Agency: The Taliban-controlled Bakhtar News Agency reported on Tuesday that 267 Afghanistani refugee families returned to Afghanistan over the past 24 hours from Iran and Pakistan. These families reportedly crossed back into Afghanistan through the Torkham, Spin Boldak, Pul-e-Abrisham, and Islam Qala border checkpoints.
The Taliban have not clarified whether the return of these Afghanistani families was voluntary or enforced. However, both Iran and Pakistan have recently intensified their crackdown on Afghanistani refugees, leading to increased arrests and deportations. Since the Taliban’s resurgence, more than ten million Afghanistanis have fled the country, seeking escape from ethnic, linguistic, religious, and political persecution, as well as poverty, fear, unemployment, and systemic marginalization.
Reports indicate that these displaced Afghanistanis frequently encounter hostility from local populations and authorities in both Iran and Pakistan. Although sectors within these countries, particularly in Iran, have expressed discontent with the Afghanistani refugee presence, they continue to maintain diplomatic and strategic ties with the forces responsible for these individuals’ displacement. Many attribute Afghanistan’s current turmoil and the Taliban’s return to power to the intervention of neighboring countries, especially Iran and Pakistan.
These nations, having supported, equipped, and financed the Taliban, facilitated the group’s eventual takeover of Afghanistan. Consequently, countless Afghanistanis are now abandoning their homeland, compelled to seek refuge in these same neighboring countries to avoid the Taliban’s oppressive, ethnically and religiously driven policies.
