About Half a Million Afghans Have Left Iranian Soil This Year
According to the International Organization for Migration, approximately half a million Afghans residing in Iran have returned to Afghanistan over the past few months. The reason for the return of Afghan workers is the decline in the value of the rial currency in international markets.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) in a report released on Tuesday, August 7 (16 Mordad), announced the return of a large number of Afghans residing in Iran to their country.
By the beginning of August this year alone, more than 442,000 Afghans who have left Iranian soil have been reported. This number is approximately equal to the total number of Afghans who left Iran during the previous calendar year.
In 2017, a total of 466,000 Afghans had left Iranian soil.
The statistics published by the International Organization for Migration refer to the number of Afghans whose names are not registered as migrants in Iran by this organization. In fact, these Afghans are people who lived and worked in Iran without valid identification documents.
According to reports by Iranian officials, between 1.5 to 2 million other Afghan migrants without identity documents are living in Iran.
Said Bayat, Director General of Foreign Nationals and Migrants Affairs in Tehran Province, stated in June of this year, referring to a population of about three million “foreign nationals” in Iran, that half of these people, who are mostly Afghans, live legally and the other half live “illegally” in Iran.
In the International Organization for Migration report, it stated that the reason for the collective return of Afghans is the existing economic crisis in Iran and the devaluation of the rial.
German news agency wrote in explaining Iran’s economic situation that the rial has lost two-thirds of its value against the U.S. dollar and one-fifth of its value against the “afghani” (Afghanistan’s currency unit) since the beginning of this calendar year.
Afghan workers have also left Iran for Turkey or the United Arab Emirates in search of work.
According to a report by Iran’s Statistical Center in June 2017, Afghans, with approximately 1.6 million people, constituted the largest migrant population in Iran. They mainly live in Tehran, Razavi Khorasan, and Qom provinces. Afghans in Iran have mostly been and continue to be engaged in hard and laborious work.
In the current economic crisis in Iran, many have lost their jobs. Afghan workers residing in Iran, as those employed at the lowest levels of the economy, have become increasingly at risk of unemployment.
Source: DW
