KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – Four Afghan migrants have reportedly been beaten to death by Turkish border guards while attempting to enter Turkey from Iran, local sources told KabulNow, marking the latest deadly incident involving Afghans attempting irregular migration.
The victims were identified as Enayatullah, Toruddin, Lotfullah and Fazl Ahmad, all residents of Hazrat Sultan district in Afghanistan’s northern Samangan province. Local sources said the four men died along the Iran-Turkey border after being attacked and severely beaten by Turkish border guards.
According to the source, their bodies have been transferred to Iran and are expected to be transported to Afghanistan in the coming days. Further details about the incident were not immediately available.
Thousands of Afghans, particularly young people, continue to undertake dangerous irregular journeys through Iran and Turkey, fleeing widespread unemployment, economic hardship and fears of persecution or retaliation under Taliban rule. Many use the two countries as transit routes to reach European countries.
The journey exposes migrants to serious risks, including violence by border guards, shootings, traffic accidents, extreme weather, hunger and dehydration. Several deadly incidents involving Afghan migrants have been reported along these routes in recent months.
In July, six Afghan migrants were shot dead in two separate incidents while attempting to cross into Iran and Turkey. Five were killed by Iranian border guards and one by Turkish border guards.
Later that month, the bodies of at least 19 Afghan nationals were discovered in a remote desert area between Afghanistan’s Helmand and Nimroz provinces after the group went missing while attempting to reach Iran. Taliban authorities said the migrants had died from extreme weather conditions, hunger and dehydration.
In September, at least 17 Afghan nationals, including five women and six children, reportedly died of thirst while attempting to enter Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan province, according to Haalvsh, a human rights group monitoring developments in the region.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimates that about 8 million Afghans have left the country since 2020, including around 1 million who reached Europe, mostly through irregular routes. The agency has documented at least 5,046 deaths of Afghan migrants since 2014, many of them along migration routes and border crossings.
