RASC News Agency: In yet another grim chapter of Afghanistan’s ongoing humanitarian tragedy, media outlets operating under Taliban censorship reported that on Wednesday, October 22, a total of 732 Afghanistani migrant families were expelled from Iran and Pakistan and forcibly returned to Afghanistan a country that offers them no safety, no support, and no future under Taliban rule.
According to the Taliban-controlled Bakhtar News Agency, officials from the group’s so-called Commission for Refugee Affairs claimed that the returnees entered Afghanistan through multiple border crossings. The report detailed that 45 families crossed via Pul-e-Abrisham in Nimruz, 65 families through Islam Qala in Herat, 619 families through Spin Boldak in Kandahar, and three families through Bahramcha in Helmand Province. The same outlet asserted that nearly 600 additional families had been expelled over the preceding two days.
While the Taliban’s propaganda portrays these returns as “voluntary repatriations,” independent sources and humanitarian observers confirm that they are forced deportations, conducted in violation of international refugee law. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has warned that both Iran and Pakistan have intensified expulsions of Afghanistani migrants in recent weeks, disregarding international appeals to suspend deportations and respect the principle of non-refoulement the legal norm that prohibits sending refugees back to a place where they face persecution or serious harm.
In a statement issued Thursday, the Pakistani Ministry of Interior claimed it would not deport “vulnerable Afghanistani nationals,” asserting that a special directive had been issued to prevent the detention or expulsion of individuals with sensitive backgrounds including human rights defenders, former members of the Afghan security forces, ex-government employees, political figures, artists, and members of ethnic or religious minorities. The ministry also announced a dedicated hotline for Afghanistani nationals at risk of arrest or deportation and instructed all provincial authorities to ensure legal and security protections for those identified as vulnerable.
Yet, human rights monitors and regional analysts report that the reality on the ground starkly contradicts Islamabad’s statements. Mass arrests and deportations continue unabated, particularly in Sindh, Balochistan, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where families are torn apart, children left stranded, and women subjected to degrading treatment. Many deportees describe being robbed of their possessions, detained in overcrowded facilities, and abandoned in border regions under inhumane and unsafe conditions.
Once inside Afghanistan, the plight of these returnees becomes even more desperate. The Taliban regime, which has dismantled every institution of social welfare and replaced them with instruments of control, offers no meaningful humanitarian assistance. The group’s so-called refugee commission functions primarily as a political propaganda tool, distributing limited aid along lines of ethnic favoritism and loyalty, while Tajiks, Hazaras, and other marginalized groups are systematically neglected. In many provinces, deported families have been left homeless and hungry, surviving in makeshift camps or ruined villages without access to food, medicine, or education.
Under Taliban rule, Afghanistan has become a country where even survival has turned into a political privilege. Humanitarian agencies attempting to reach deportees face restrictions, intimidation, and extortion from Taliban officials who often divert aid to their own members. International organizations warn that the forced return of refugees into such conditions amounts to a slow-motion humanitarian disaster.
“The Taliban’s governance is a theatre of cruelty,” said an aid worker based in Herat, who spoke to RASC News under condition of anonymity. “They have institutionalized poverty, erased compassion, and now even those who fled their oppression are being sent back to die under their control.”
Analysts argue that the expulsion of Afghanistani refugees is not merely a regional migration issue, but a moral failure of international diplomacy. As the world turns its attention elsewhere, millions of Afghans are being abandoned to a regime that silences dissent, punishes women, and weaponizes hunger as a tool of submission.
Human rights advocates have called on Iran, Pakistan, and the broader international community to immediately halt forced deportations and to establish safe resettlement corridors for Afghanistani refugees. They further urge global powers to hold the Taliban accountable for their systematic persecution of civilians, which continues to drive the mass exodus of people from Afghanistan.
Until that happens, the cycle of displacement will persist a vicious circle in which the Taliban’s repression, regional indifference, and international neglect converge to crush a nation already on its knees.
