The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), Armanshahr|OPEN ASIA, the League for the Defence Human Rights in Iran (LDDHI), and the Afghanistan Democracy and Development Organization (ADDO) express their deep concern and condemnation over the recent mass forcible return of Afghan refugees and migrants estimated at 700,000 by Iran. Pakistan has also forcibly returned up to 900,000 Afghan refugees and asylum seekers since 2023. This mass refoulement constitutes a blatant violation of fundamental human rights principles and Iran and Pakistan’s international obligations, particularly under the 1951 Refugee Convention, which only Iran ratified in 1976, and the internationally-recognised principle of non-refoulement.
Paris, 18 July 2025. Since the Taliban’s illegal and violent takeover of Afghanistan on 15 August 2021, several million Afghans have been forced to flee their country to protect their lives and freedoms. In 2023, the number of Afghan refugees reported globally reached 6.4 million, while 3.2 million are internally displaced persons (IDPs) within the country. Less than 500,000 asylum seekers have been relocated to Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia and a handful of transfer or transit points in countries in Latin America and Africa, led by the United States, the United Kingdom, and some international organisations.
Many Afghanistan nationals have been refused official registration in Iran and have been harassed and faced numerous challenges to even reach the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Pakistan. They are now facing forcible return and detention, at the hand of Iranian security forces. Reports abound of physical and psychological violence committed by Iranian security forces, as well as cases of harassment and racially-motivated attacks and humiliation by local individuals against Afghans.
According to various sources, the Afghan population in Iran is estimated at more than six million people, with approximately two million lacking legal residency documents. This is one of the largest and most protracted refugee crises in the world for over four decades.
In an intense surge in just the past six months, 691,049 Afghans (both long-term residency holders, non-registered individuals, and newcomers), including 70% who have endured forcible return to Afghanistan. The deadline of 6 July 2025 given in late May by the Iranian government to Afghans to leave Iran was extremely short.
In many cases, family members were detained and forcibly returned separately, leaving numerous children unaccompanied and without guardians. Children have been left without parents in deportation camps along Afghanistan’s borders, facing dire nutritional, health, and psychological conditions. Moreover, a significant number of these children were born in Iran and have no social or linguistic ties to Afghanistan. They are provided with no official logistical support for moving their possessions, forcing families to abandon all they have built over decades and arrive in Afghanistan destitute and empty-handed. They have had no opportunity to settle their affairs, notably retrieve down payments for rent, collect their salaries and belongings, or arrange transportation of their household items.
It has been estimated that four million Afghans have sought refuge in Pakistan, including 1.4 million registered by the UNHCR. Between October 2023 and early 2025, Pakistani authorities forcibly returned around 600,000 Afghan nationals. In late 2023, the Pakistani government announced it would expel 1.7 million undocumented Afghans in phases. Consequently, an estimated 800,000 to one million Afghans - regardless of their status - have either been forcibly returned or left under pressure, detained or asked to pay fines.
Conditions for Afghan migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in Pakistan are dire, characterised by widespread poverty because they are not allowed to work, homelessness because they are not allowed to rent, and severe restrictions on their rights and livelihoods. Single women, human rights defenders, and journalists are particularly vulnerable and subject to different forms of extortion and threat of detention. Many report fear of being arrested and remain at home.
Despite the presence of UNHCR in all three countries, their support programme addressing the current humanitarian crisis has had little impact on the highly vulnerable Afghan refugees in Iran and Pakistan and those forcibly returned to Afghanistan. The organisation has been challenged in fulfilling its mandate to register, assist, and protect all asylum seekers in Iran and Pakistan, to seek durable solutions including settlement, local integration, and their safety and dignity, and to uphold the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, especially the protocol of non-refoulment. UNHCR’s mandate inside Afghanistan with regards to assisting these large numbers of forcibly returned Afghans and IDPs to reintegrate them has not achieved its mission. The returnees have not received the necessary cash grants, household items, or basic service for their daily life from the current UNHCR programme and they are facing a new humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan.
Taliban spokespersons have repeatedly declared that they have neither the capacity nor the will to host forcibly returned Afghans. Forced returns to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan have severe security, economic, and humanitarian consequences. The Taliban have offered no reintegration, employment or social support programmes for those who have been forcibly returned, and most of them face poverty, homelessness, and security threats upon arrival.
In the face of the brutality of refoulement and lack of institutional support to forcibly returned Afghans many citizens in Afghanistan, notably in Herat, have initiated and led remarkable actions by mobilising humanitarian aid. Some Afghan diaspora activists have condemned the process but underlined the climate of fear under Taliban rule and the reasons why millions of people have fled their country. Several courageous collective calls made by Iranian women’s rights, civil society, and human rights and independent media activists have condemned the forced return and treatment of Afghanistan nationals. Local people in Iran’s Balochistan Province, incapable of preventing the forcible returns, mobilised to provide water and food to Afghans held in border camps awaiting their refoulement.
1. We call on the governments of Iran and Pakistan to:
• Immediately halt the mass deportation of Afghan refugees and asylum seekers;
• Uphold the principle of non-refoulement;
• Cooperate transparently and effectively with human rights organisations and UN agencies.
2. We call on UNHCR and donor governments to:
• Urgently establish effective support, resettlement, and reintegration programmes for returnees in Afghanistan, including necessary cash grants, household items or basic services for their daily life from the current UNHCR programme;
• Facilitate and accelerate the Refugee Status Determination (RSD) and the provision of temporary residence permits and humanitarian visas for those at risk of deportation specially women, human rights defenders, journalists, religious and ethnic minorities, and LGBTQI;
• Establish a clear, transparent and responsible channel of communication to provide updates on individual asylum-seeking cases, set realistic timelines, and reduce misinformation;
• Use legal and diplomatic tools to prevent the continued violation of Afghan refugees’ rights in Iran and Pakistan.
