The bus accident kills more than 70 Afghans expelled from Iran, including 17 children

Peshawar, Pakistan – at least 75 people, including 17 children, were killed in Afghanistan in a traffic accident involving a bus carrying migrants who were expelled from Iran, officials announced on Wednesday.

The bus went to the Afghan capital, Kabul, of neighboring Iran Tuesday evening when he collided with a motorcycle and another vehicle in the western province of Herat near the Iranian border, according to the senior Afghan government Ahmadullah Muttaqi.

“The car was carrying fuel, and it caught fire after a frontal collision with the bus, entirely responsible for passengers,” he said. “The bus also caught fire and the majority of people on the bus died of injury.”

The 73 Afghan bus migrants, including 17 children, were killed, as well as two people from other vehicles. Two other people were injured, said Muttaqi.

Migrants are among the hundreds of thousands of Afghans who have returned in recent months from Iran and Pakistan, who both announced a repression in October 2023 on people who, according to them, lived illegally.

There are fears that Afghanistan can still be destabilized by mass evictions, which have been criticized by international rights groups, as well as by the Taliban in power of Afghanistan, as a violation of international standards and humanitarian principles. Many of those who return have lived outside Afghanistan for decades and can only bring what they can wear.

“These Afghan refugees returned home after spending a lot of time in Iran, but they could not reach their destination when their bus encountered a tragic accident,” said Muttaqi.

Traffic accidents are common in Afghanistan, where war decades have left roads in poor condition and traffic laws are poorly applied.

Since the 1970s, millions of people have fled Afghanistan for Iran and Pakistan, especially during the Soviet invasion in 1979 and the return of the Taliban power in 2021. Afghan migrants in the two countries say they have been confronted with systemic discrimination and even violence.

The United Nations human rights officials said last week that more than 2.2 million people had returned to Afghanistan in Iran and Pakistan since the start of the year – more than 1.8 million Iran and nearly 400,000 people from Pakistan. The authorities of the two countries deny that they specifically aim for Afghans.

Experts say that many Afghan migrants have been expelled or forced to go back to force in the face of threats, harassment and intimidation.

Iran had told the Afghans undocumented to leave the country by July 6, but departures accelerated in the middle of a 12 -day conflict in June between Iran and Israel, during which some Iranians accused Afghan spy migrants. The deadline has since been extended until September 6.

The UN says that the sharp increase in the number of people returning to Afghanistan has created a “multi-layer crisis in human rights” and that some have been tortured and threatened by the Taliban because of their identity or their personal stories. He indicates that women and girls are faced with an even higher risk of persecution in Afghanistan, where they are denied access to education after the sixth year.

Taliban officials say that people who return to Afghanistan are not mistreated and that they receive money, food, health care and other supporters when they arrive.

Afghanistan is already struggling to provide basic services to its population of more than 40 million inhabitants, more than half of which relies on humanitarian aid while the United States and other international funding is reduced.

Thousands of Afghans in the United States are also faced with expulsion after a federal court of appeal last month allowed the Trump administration to remove the protections allowing them to live and work temporarily in the country.

Trump administration officials said the Afghans in the United States no longer needed protected status because the situation in their country of origin is improving.

Mushtaq Yusufzai reported Peshawar and Jennifer Jett from Hong Kong.