Eighteen bodies with traces of torture were found in Afghanistan, while reports last week said dozens of Afghan migrants turned back by Iranian border guards who drowned crossing a river, said on Friday responsible.
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" Of the 55 Afghan migrants who were forced to return to the river, we have so far recovered 18 bodies, " Abdul Ghani Noori, governor of Gulran district on the border with the border, told AFP. Iran. Six migrants are still missing, while the others have survived, he added. The bodies " bear traces of beatings and torture, " reported Abdul Ghani Noori. " According to the accounts of the survivors and the marks on the bodies of the victims, they were first whipped with wire cables by the Iranian border guards, then forced under the threat of a weapon to jump into the river " , he said.
The Afghan Human Rights Commission said on Sunday it spoke with survivors who accused Iranian forces of hitting and torturing them, then forced to cross a river separating the two countries, in which " some have drowned ." The Afghan government has launched an investigation into the facts, which Iran has denied, citing an " incident ... on Afghan soil ".
The United States, whose relations with Iran are extremely stormy, have expressed " concern " about this information, via their embassy in Kabul. " Iran's cruel treatment and alleged mistreatment of Afghan migrants is horrible, " said Alice Wells, acting assistant secretary of state for Asia, on Tuesday. Sud, on Twitter.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), nearly 3.5 million Afghans, including just under a million refugees, live in Iran. Tens of thousands have returned to Afghanistan since the start of the Covid-19 disease pandemic, but as restrictions have been relaxed in Iran, many are trying to return.
