About 300 protesters gathered on Monday outside an Iranian consulate in western Afghanistan to condemn the alleged " brutal " drowning of migrants by Iranian border guards.
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" Death to (president Hassan) Rohani, Death to (Ayatollah Ali) Khamenei ", sang the demonstrators in front of the consulate in the province of Herat. Officials said the Iranian border guards forced 55 Afghan migrants to enter the Harirud River as they illegally crossed the border into Herat on their way to Iran. Eighteen bodies, some with traces of torture and beatings, have been found so far, and many migrants remain missing. " These Afghan workers, who left for a bite of food, were viciously and brutally killed by the Iranians and thrown into the river, " Nafisa Danish, an activist participating in the demonstration, told AFP. "Where are human rights? This Iranian massacre should be condemned. "
Suraya Ahmadi, a resident of the city of Herat, called on the Afghan, Iranian, and UN authorities to investigate the incident. " We organized this demonstration to condemn the murder of our compatriots who went to Iran to support their families, " said Suraya Ahmadi. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has set up a team of ten to investigate the drowning of the migrants.
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Last week, Abdul Ghani Noori, the governor of Gulran district in Herat, announced that " the accounts of the survivors and the marks on the bodies of the victims " show that the migrants were " first whipped with metal cables by Iranian border guards then forced to jump into the river at gunpoint . ” Iran, however, denied the information, citing an " incident (...) that occurred on Afghan soil ".
This Kabul decision to open an investigation has received support from the United States, in a context of extreme tensions between Washington and Tehran. " Iran's cruel treatment and alleged mistreatment of Afghan migrants is horrible, " said Alice Wells, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, on Twitter last week.
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Between 1.5 and three million Afghan refugees live and work in Iran, most of them as construction workers. Tens of thousands have returned to Afghanistan since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, but as restrictions have been relaxed in Iran, many are trying to return to work.
