By Muzhdan Mohammadi– Herat
In a corner of a large park in the ancient Afghan city of Herat, a young woman sits and rocks her crying baby in a makeshift cradle made from a piece of cloth tied between two trees. With little shade from the burning sun, both mother and child are exhausted and hungry as they wait for aid that may or may not come.
Mahnaz – not her real name – says she’s only been able to get one packet of infant formula in the three days since she and her family arrived at the Molana Jami Park, which has become an impromptu displacement camp for Afghans recently arrived from Iran. All around are tents, backpacks and suitcases containing all the possessions those recently arrived could carry with them as they crossed the border into Afghanistan, some after decades in Iran.
Some have been forced out in a mass deportation drive by Tehran, which ruled in March that undocumented migrants must leave. Others have chosen to leave before they are forced, motivated in part by what they describe as growing hostility towards Afghans in Iran.
Mahnaz, whose real name we are withholding at her request, is one of around half a dozen women interviewed by Rukhshana Media in Herat who left Afghanistan hoping for a better life and have now returned, penniless and homeless. Her three children were born in Iran, where her husband sold cheap jewellery to make a living, and the couple spent all the money they had on the journey. Quietly, her voice weak with exhaustion, she tells us she doesn’t know how they will live.
“We have nowhere to go. My cousin lives in Herat, but I’ve never met them. Even if we saw each other, we wouldn’t recognise one another.”
The only help available in Herat is from local volunteers in the city, where people have mobilised to assist the new arrivals coming across the border with food and transport. But it’s limited – all the women interviewed by Rukhshana Media said their basic needs were not being met, and there was no help from the Taliban authorities.
“They registered my husband [at the border] and took his photo, but told us the aid was finished and to come back tomorrow. But the next morning, we were already on our way to Herat,” said Mahnaz.
More than 2.4 million undocumented Afghans have returned to the country from Pakistan and Iran since September 2023. Many have no income, no home and little family left in Afghanistan. In a statement this week, UN Women said returnee women and girls faced increased risks of poverty, early marriage, violence, exploitation and unprecedented restrictions on their rights, movements and freedoms.
“Vulnerable women and girls arriving with nothing into communities that are already stretched to breaking point puts them at even greater risk,” said UN Women Afghanistan Special Representative Susan Ferguson.
Women in “Mawlana Jami” Park / Photo: Rukhshana Media
Zahra Hashemi was still asleep when two Iranian police officers burst into the house she shared with her family early one morning last week and shouted at them to get up. They did not allow her to pack her belongings, or even dress her children, before arresting them and taking them to a prison camp, where they spent two nights before being deported.
Hashemi was born in Iran and had never even lived in Afghanistan before finding herself in the camp at Molana Jami Park in Herat with five of her seven children. One of her daughters is married and is still in Iran while her eldest son, who is 19, was arrested by Iranian police at his workplace 20 days ago and deported.
Like many Afghans in Iran, the family lost everything because they had to leave suddenly. People have been arrested and deported with no notice, leaving them unable to claim back rental deposits, gather their belongings, or even receive their last paychecks.
In an interview with Rukhshana Media, Hashemi, 40, described how Afghans were beaten on the long bus journey to the border, during which Iranian authorities periodically took a roll-call of their names to ensure no one had escaped. Anyone who failed to respond was punched and kicked, even if they were just asleep or in the toilet.
“Every time we stopped, it was very hot outside. I suffered a lot because of my baby,” she said. “All we had to eat was dry rice and lentils, and they didn’t allow us to eat on the bus.”
Returning to avoid arrest
In another corner of Molana Jami Park, a boy sits beside his tent, having just returned from a visit to the doctor. His mother Sadbibi, who is staying in the park with her four young children, says he developed a fever and began vomiting after spending a week sleeping outside, likely from heatstroke.
“We’ve been here since Friday and have no shelter. My children got heatstroke and are on medication… There’s no bathroom here to wash,” said Sadbibi, who asked to be identified by only her first name. She and her family returned to Afghanistan voluntarily after three and a half years in Iran, fearing arrest if they stayed.
The growing number of arrivals is pushing up demand for housing, and prices are rising, making it impossible for recent arrivals to rent. With no help from the Taliban authorities, they are stuck.
Nonetheless, many of the women Rukhshana Media spoke to in the park said they have no desire to return to Iran. Hashemi, who was born there, said she was frequently abused in the market as a “filthy Afghan” and told to go back home.
The hostility peaked after the 12-day conflict between Israel and Iran, when Iranian media claimed Afghan migrants had spied for Israel – a claim later denied by Iranian officials. Daily arrivals over the border spiked to around 30,000 at that time, though they have since fallen back to about 10,000.
Hawagul, who also asked to be identified by just one name, has just returned to Afghanistan after spending just over three years with her husband and four children in Iran, where she said life had become unbearable. “The house became a cage for me and my children. If my kids went outside, the neighbours would call the landlord and threaten to inform the police if he didn’t evict us,” she said.
Salima, a 27-year-old woman who went to Iran with her husband eight years ago in search of a better life, said her husband was arrested four times. “They beat him nearly to death, so badly that he ended up in hospital,” she said. “They demanded large sums for his release … and even then, there was no guarantee he wouldn’t be arrested again.
Everything was more expensive for Afghans, Salima said – “rent, buses, even bread”. But harder than the financial pressure was the constant humiliation. “They used to say, ‘you’ve occupied our country’. Even in offices, when we greeted them, they wouldn’t respond.”
For Mahnaz, with her hungry, crying baby, the challenges are more urgent. “I don’t know the city, and I have no money,” she said, despairingly.
Added to that are her fears for her eldest daughter. The teenager was in a government school in Iran but won’t be able to go to school in Afghanistan, where secondary education for girls is banned.
“All the dreams and efforts my daughter made over nine years are now gone,” said Mahnaz. “She can’t go to school any more, and has no future.”
