Herat, Afghanistan: Waiting on the bus, during an hour on a recent night Herat The station full of passengers mostly young men, they had no luggage, only clothes on their backs, perhaps a bag with bread and water for the long road ahead.
That road is taking them towards Iran.
Every day, several buses leave from the western city of Herat in Afghanistan, carrying hundreds of people to the border. There they disembark, join their smugglers and trek for days, sometimes tucked away in pickup trucks traversing the wasteland, sometimes on foot through treacherous mountains in the dark, escaping guards and thieves Huh.
Once in Iran, most will remain there in search of work. But there is hope to go further.
“We’re going to Europe,” said Aaron, who was sitting on the bus next to his friend Fuad. There is no work in his village. “We have no choice, the economy here has collapsed. Even if it means our death on the way, we accept it.
Driven by desperation, increasing numbers of Afghans are flowing across the border into Iran. Since Taliban The takeover in mid-August has accelerated Afghanistan’s economic collapse, robbing millions of works and leaving them unable to feed their families. According to the Norwegian Refugee Council, over the past three months, more than 300,000 people have entered Iran illegally, and more than 4,000 to 5,000 per day.
The EU is now bracing for a possible increase in Afghans trying to reach its shores at a time when EU nations in general are determined to hold off against migrants.
So far, there has been no increase in the number of Afghan migrants to Europe since the Taliban. According to the EU’s Weekly Migration Report since November 21, Afghan entries to the EU “have remained “mostly stable.” have fled the country.
But a vast majority of migrants intend to stay in Iran, which is struggling to close its doors. It already hosts more than 3 million Afghans who fled their homeland during the turmoil of previous decades.
Iran is increasing deportations, sending back 20,000 or 30,000 Afghans every week. According to the International Organization for Migration, this year, Iran has deported more than 1.1 million Afghans as of November 21, a 30% increase from the total in 2020. Outcasts often try again and again.
The exodus to Afghanistan has evacuated some of his men’s villages. In Jar-e Savaz, a village north of Herat visited by the Associated Press, an elderly man was the only male left after all the young men had left.
A smuggler in Herat – a woman involved in the business for two decades – said that before the Taliban took over, she was driving 50 or 60 people into Iran a week, almost all single men. Since her August takeover, she moves about 300 people a week, including women and children.
“The country is devastated so people have to leave,” she said, on condition that she would not be named because of her work. “I think I’m doing the right thing. If someone poor asks me, I cannot refuse them. I ask God to help them.”
She charges the equivalent of about $400 per person, but only pays $16 in advance, with the rest paid after the migrant finds work. The pay-later system is common in Herat, a sign that there are so many expatriates, smugglers may accept some risk that some will be unable to pay. On the way, smugglers bribe Taliban, Pakistani and Iranian border guards to turn a blind eye, he said.
Everyone leaving gives the same reason.
“There is nothing here. There is no work and our families are hungry,” said 20-year-old Nayab, who was staying with a group of migrants one night in a desolate area in sight of the Iranian border outside Herat. “If we have to, we go on crawling. There is no other choice.”
Afghanistan was already one of the world’s poorest countries even before the Taliban takeover, and the economy has been on the wane over the past year, worsened by the coronavirus pandemic and a terrible drought since late 2020.
When the Taliban came to power on August 15, the international donor fund that kept Afghanistan’s economy alive was disbanded. Unable to pay the salaries of the Taliban government, hundreds of thousands of state workers found themselves without a livelihood. With funding for projects running out, many jobs in the labor market disappeared.
In Herat, 22-year-old Farid Ahmed went to a main square every day to hire contractors for a day’s work. Earlier, they used to get work for most of the days. He said, ‘Now we wait all day long and no one comes to hire us.’
So last month he took his wife and their two young daughters_age 8 months and 2 years_ across the border. He heard from a relative already there that he and his wife had jobs in a weaving factory in Tehran.
The crossing was a nightmare, he said. He had to walk three hours in the dark along with several hundred others across the border. Her daughters were crying in the cold and dark. Once in Iran, he was almost immediately captured by the police and deported.
Back home, nothing has changed. He goes to the Chowk everyday, but does not get work. So he will try to get his family back. “After winter,” he said. “It’s too cold now to pass the kids.”
Herat, Afghanistan’s third largest city, is a major center for Afghans making their way to Iran from other parts of the country.
The city is only an hour’s drive from the Iranian border, but there is a lot of border patrolling. Instead, migrants begin the 300-mile (480-kilometre) journey south to Nimroj, a remote region of desert and mountains that is Afghanistan’s least populous province. Here, migrants move to a corner of Pakistan, from where they can easily enter Iran.
It is a difficult journey. Reza Rezai, a resident of Herat, traveled with his 17-year-old son. The most harrowing moment comes at the Iran-Pakistan border, where migrants have to board and then disembark moschelghar, literally “difficult mountain”, on narrow trails with steep drops.
“It’s dark and you can’t turn on the flashlight for safety’s sake,” he recalled. On their way up, they move in a single file, each holding a scarf in front of them. Descending to the Iranian side, they awkwardly crawl down so that they do not fall off the side. He said, “If you fall, no one will help you because they will also fall.”
At one point in Iran, he and others hid in a luggage compartment under the bus to get around checkpoints. He worked for a few weeks while doing construction work in Shiraz Before that he was caught in a police raid and expelled.
But he is careless. His father passed away recently, so he will have to wait for the 40-day mourning period to end. Then he will try Iran again.
“What else can I do? Here, there is nothing,'” he said.
That road is taking them towards Iran.
Every day, several buses leave from the western city of Herat in Afghanistan, carrying hundreds of people to the border. There they disembark, join their smugglers and trek for days, sometimes tucked away in pickup trucks traversing the wasteland, sometimes on foot through treacherous mountains in the dark, escaping guards and thieves Huh.
Once in Iran, most will remain there in search of work. But there is hope to go further.
“We’re going to Europe,” said Aaron, who was sitting on the bus next to his friend Fuad. There is no work in his village. “We have no choice, the economy here has collapsed. Even if it means our death on the way, we accept it.
Driven by desperation, increasing numbers of Afghans are flowing across the border into Iran. Since Taliban The takeover in mid-August has accelerated Afghanistan’s economic collapse, robbing millions of works and leaving them unable to feed their families. According to the Norwegian Refugee Council, over the past three months, more than 300,000 people have entered Iran illegally, and more than 4,000 to 5,000 per day.
The EU is now bracing for a possible increase in Afghans trying to reach its shores at a time when EU nations in general are determined to hold off against migrants.
So far, there has been no increase in the number of Afghan migrants to Europe since the Taliban. According to the EU’s Weekly Migration Report since November 21, Afghan entries to the EU “have remained “mostly stable.” have fled the country.
But a vast majority of migrants intend to stay in Iran, which is struggling to close its doors. It already hosts more than 3 million Afghans who fled their homeland during the turmoil of previous decades.
Iran is increasing deportations, sending back 20,000 or 30,000 Afghans every week. According to the International Organization for Migration, this year, Iran has deported more than 1.1 million Afghans as of November 21, a 30% increase from the total in 2020. Outcasts often try again and again.
The exodus to Afghanistan has evacuated some of his men’s villages. In Jar-e Savaz, a village north of Herat visited by the Associated Press, an elderly man was the only male left after all the young men had left.
A smuggler in Herat – a woman involved in the business for two decades – said that before the Taliban took over, she was driving 50 or 60 people into Iran a week, almost all single men. Since her August takeover, she moves about 300 people a week, including women and children.
“The country is devastated so people have to leave,” she said, on condition that she would not be named because of her work. “I think I’m doing the right thing. If someone poor asks me, I cannot refuse them. I ask God to help them.”
She charges the equivalent of about $400 per person, but only pays $16 in advance, with the rest paid after the migrant finds work. The pay-later system is common in Herat, a sign that there are so many expatriates, smugglers may accept some risk that some will be unable to pay. On the way, smugglers bribe Taliban, Pakistani and Iranian border guards to turn a blind eye, he said.
Everyone leaving gives the same reason.
“There is nothing here. There is no work and our families are hungry,” said 20-year-old Nayab, who was staying with a group of migrants one night in a desolate area in sight of the Iranian border outside Herat. “If we have to, we go on crawling. There is no other choice.”
Afghanistan was already one of the world’s poorest countries even before the Taliban takeover, and the economy has been on the wane over the past year, worsened by the coronavirus pandemic and a terrible drought since late 2020.
When the Taliban came to power on August 15, the international donor fund that kept Afghanistan’s economy alive was disbanded. Unable to pay the salaries of the Taliban government, hundreds of thousands of state workers found themselves without a livelihood. With funding for projects running out, many jobs in the labor market disappeared.
In Herat, 22-year-old Farid Ahmed went to a main square every day to hire contractors for a day’s work. Earlier, they used to get work for most of the days. He said, ‘Now we wait all day long and no one comes to hire us.’
So last month he took his wife and their two young daughters_age 8 months and 2 years_ across the border. He heard from a relative already there that he and his wife had jobs in a weaving factory in Tehran.
The crossing was a nightmare, he said. He had to walk three hours in the dark along with several hundred others across the border. Her daughters were crying in the cold and dark. Once in Iran, he was almost immediately captured by the police and deported.
Back home, nothing has changed. He goes to the Chowk everyday, but does not get work. So he will try to get his family back. “After winter,” he said. “It’s too cold now to pass the kids.”
Herat, Afghanistan’s third largest city, is a major center for Afghans making their way to Iran from other parts of the country.
The city is only an hour’s drive from the Iranian border, but there is a lot of border patrolling. Instead, migrants begin the 300-mile (480-kilometre) journey south to Nimroj, a remote region of desert and mountains that is Afghanistan’s least populous province. Here, migrants move to a corner of Pakistan, from where they can easily enter Iran.
It is a difficult journey. Reza Rezai, a resident of Herat, traveled with his 17-year-old son. The most harrowing moment comes at the Iran-Pakistan border, where migrants have to board and then disembark moschelghar, literally “difficult mountain”, on narrow trails with steep drops.
“It’s dark and you can’t turn on the flashlight for safety’s sake,” he recalled. On their way up, they move in a single file, each holding a scarf in front of them. Descending to the Iranian side, they awkwardly crawl down so that they do not fall off the side. He said, “If you fall, no one will help you because they will also fall.”
At one point in Iran, he and others hid in a luggage compartment under the bus to get around checkpoints. He worked for a few weeks while doing construction work in Shiraz Before that he was caught in a police raid and expelled.
But he is careless. His father passed away recently, so he will have to wait for the 40-day mourning period to end. Then he will try Iran again.
“What else can I do? Here, there is nothing,'” he said.
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