Dozens deported from Iran killed during a bus disaster

The accident in Western Afghanistan killed 79 people, including 17 children, most of whom were on the bus carried by Afghan migrants deported from Iran, the Taliban Ministry’s press secretary confirmed the BBC.

The bus on the way to Kabul caught fire on Tuesday night after a collision with a truck and a motorcycle in Garat province.

All on board the bus were killed, as well as two people from other vehicles, Ahmadul Motaki, director of information and culture of the Taliban in Herat, told the BBC Pashto earlier.

In recent months, Iran has intensified the deportation of the undocumented Afghan migrants who fled with the conflict in the homeland.

“All passengers were migrants who sat down in Islam Kala,” said Mohammad Yusuf Saidi governor’s press, citing the city near the border of Afghanistan and Iran.

Gerata police said the accident occurred at the “excessive speed and negligence” of the bus, AFP reports.

Road incidents are common in Afghanistan, where roads have been damaged by decades of conflicts and the car driving rules are not complied with.

Since the 1970s, millions of Afghans fled to Iran and Pakistan, with large waves during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and after the Taliban return to power in 2021.

This contributed to the enhancement of anti-Afghan moods in Iran, and refugees face systemic discrimination.

Previously, Iran gave a July term for the undocumented Afghans to voluntarily go.

But after a short war with Israel in June, Iranian authorities forcibly returned hundreds of thousands of Afghans, claiming that national security problems – although critics say Tehran could just look for goats for their refusals from Israeli attacks.

More than 1.5 million Afghans have left Iran since January, the UN refugee news agency reports. Some were generations in Iran.

Experts warn that Afghanistan lacks the opportunity to absorb an increasing number of citizens who forcibly returned to the country under the Taliban government. The country is already fighting a large influx of return from Pakistan, which also causes hundreds of thousands of Afghans to leave.

“The return of so many people creates additional tensions on already overwhelmed resources, and this new wave of refugees comes at a time when Afghanistan begins to feel the harsh consequences of reducing assistance,” said Arshad Malik, director of the country “to keep the children of Afghanistan.”