KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – Iranian border guards reportedly shot and killed two Afghan migrants and injured another while they were attempting to cross into Iran, local sources reported.
The incident occurred on Thursday, November 21, in the border area between Afghanistan’s Nimruz province and Iran’s Sistan and Balochistan province.
According to the sources, all three victims were residents of Afghanistan’s Laghman province. The injured individual has been transferred to Kabul for treatment.
The Taliban and Iranian officials have not yet commented on the incident.
This is the latest incident of its kind. In recent years, Afghan migrants fleeing widespread unemployment and economic hardship at home have faced violence from Iran’s border guards while attempting to enter Iran in search of better opportunities.
The latest and one of the deadliest incidents occurred last month, when Iranian border guards shot and killed at least 260 Afghan migrants in a border region near the Iran-Pakistan border, according to an Iranian rights group.
According to Haalvsh, an Iran-based rights group, around 300 Afghan migrants attempting to enter Iran in the Savaran region were allegedly ambushed and attacked by Iranian forces. Only 50 to 60 of them survived the attack.
The incident has sparked widespread outrage and condemnation both domestically and internationally. The UN, the US, and human rights groups, including Amnesty International, have called for an immediate, transparent investigation and accountability for the incident.
Iran hosts approximately 4.5 million Afghan refugees, according to the United Nations. However, recent years have seen Tehran implement strict anti-migrant policies, resulting in the deportation of over a million Afghan refugees, most of them women and children, back to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
