Deadly crossing: Afghan migrants targeted
at Iran border
In two incidents October 14 and 17, Iranian border guards opened fire on Afghan refugees attempting to cross into Iran, killing at least 13 people and possibly many more. The shootings took place in Iran’s southeastern Sistan and Baluchistan province, which borders Afghanistan and Pakistan. Although Iranian authorities have categorically denied the claims, amateur videos and witness testimony contradict the official narrative.
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On October 15, videos started emerging on social media showing Afghan migrants who had been injured in a shooting by Iranian border guards near Iran’s border with Pakistan. The victims were among a group of several hundred Afghans being smuggled into Iran after crossing into Pakistan from Afghanistan 300km further north.
The incident occurred in the remote Kalagan district of the province of Sistan and Baluchistan, on Iran’s eastern border with Pakistan. Initial reports indicated that more than 100 of the migrants might have been killed or injured.
While Iranian officials have denied the shooting took place, the United Nations’ mission to Afghanistan on October 17 expressed “deep concern” about the incident and said Afghanistan’s Taliban government had opened an investigation.
"There’s no doubt the total death toll is much higher"
According to Hal Vash, a media outlet focusing on human rights issues in Iran’s southeast, the shooting took place on October 14. The group’s editor-in-chief, Shir Ahmad Narouyi, provided a detailed account, based on the group’s sources inside Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan:
What happened on October 14 is that human traffickers were moving several groups of around 50 migrants each, totalling roughly 300 people. We managed to track down the trafficker responsible for transporting them. According to him, about 50 to 60 people were able to escape the gunfire; the rest are still missing – either dead, injured, or out of contact – including women and children.
The location where the shooting took place is well known to the border guards. They are aware that those using this passage are simply ordinary people seeking refuge, safety and work in Iran. Human traffickers typically bribe the Iranian border guards, who look the other way for 30 minutes to an hour, allowing the migrants to cross during that window. This wasn’t a routine patrol – the refugees were ambushed.
Due to the rural and inaccessible nature of the Kalagan region – there's no electricity, and no internet – it is challenging to gather accurate information. Moreover, the victims and injured were scattered across three countries. Some returned to Afghanistan. People who were injured were taken to Mashkel in Pakistan [13km from the border] and Saravan in Iran, along with the bodies of the deceased.
In Pakistan, injured victims will likely be reluctant to notify the authorities that they were shot, fearing it could cause them further problems. In Afghanistan, there’s no proper recording or accounting system in place: a death by firearm is, tragically, just another Monday there.
Sources at the Razi Hospital in Saravan say there are 13 bodies there, and 20 migrants being treated for serious injuries, all of them young men under the age of 30.
There’s no doubt the total death toll is much higher.
According to our sources, Iranian officials initially planned to bury the bodies inside Iran, but the Taliban requested they be handed over.
Iran denies
General Reza Shojaei, commander of the Sistan and Baluchistan border guard on October 16 rejected reports of border shooting as "basically false". On the same day, Hassan Kazemi Ghomi, the Iranian president’s special representative for Afghan affairs, also dismissed the allegations as "the frenzy of the lying media".
Since the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan in August 2021, Iran has seen a massive influx of Afghan refugees. According to UN figures, around one million Afghans have sought refuge in Iran since the Taliban takeover. Iranian officials estimate that the total number of Afghan immigrants in Iran now exceeds five million, most of them undocumented. This surge in immigration has intensified tensions, with growing calls in Iran for stricter controls and even mass deportations.
Iranian politicians have increasingly called for tougher immigration policies. Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi claimed on May 6 that Iran had deported 1.3 million undocumented Afghan migrants in the 12 months leading up to March 2024.
Ambush at the border: refugees trapped in a deadly crossing
Hal Vash has documented another incident which took place in the same district of Kalagan four days later on October 17. Editor Shir Ahmad Narouyi continues:
As before, the human traffickers paid the local border guards to turn a blind eye. Typically, it’s the border guards who choose the location for the traffickers to cross. In this case, the traffickers followed the instructions, but the designated area was a minefield.
When the migrants arrived, the mines began to explode, and the border guards started shooting at them. We’ve been able to confirm this incident – it’s been cross-referenced, and we’ve spoken to the traffickers involved. Unfortunately, we don’t yet have confirmed information about the number of dead or injured.
Activists and human rights groups argue that the attacks on Afghan refugees represent an alarming escalation in Iran's efforts to stem the flow of migrants. Although the incidents took place in a remote, sparsely populated area, human rights organisations active in Iran’s Sistan and Baluchistan province have gathered evidence, including video footage and survivor accounts, from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran.
Shir Ahmad Narouyi continues:
These mass shootings signal a clear political shift in Iran’s refugee policy. It’s meant to spread fear and deter Afghans from coming to Iran.
But there are other dynamics at play locally. The more difficult it becomes to cross the border, the more expensive it becomes. Human traffickers and corrupt border guards profit from this, extracting more money from the pockets of impoverished Afghans.
There have always been incidents at the border, whether from mine explosions or Afghans being killed in police chases. But these repeated mass shootings, where migrants are lured into minefields or ambushed, are something entirely new and different.
Despite the firm denials from Iranian authorities, families of some of the victims and missing migrants in Afghanistan have spoken to local Afghan media, pleading for information and seeking answers about the fate of their loved ones.
How desperate do these boys have to be to want to go to a country like Iran? And yet, girls are far worse off than boys in Afghanistan. This is Islam at its finest! What, exactly, is driving these boys to risk their lives to leave Afghanistan? The Taliban is losing a generation of boys and is destroying a generation of girls, keeping them half illiterate and invisible. What madness!
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces said Thursday that Turkish air strikes killed 12 civilians in northeastern Syria, following a deadly attack on a defence firm near Ankara.
"Over the past hours... a new wave of (Turkish) attacks on northern and eastern Syria" killed "12 civilians, including two children", and wounded 25 others, a statement from the US-backed force said.
"In addition to populated areas, Turkish warplanes and UAVs (drones) targeted bakeries, power stations, oil facilities and (Kurdish) Internal Security Force checkpoints," the statement added, also reporting Turkish shelling.
Turkey launched air strikes on Kurdish militants in Iraq and Syria Wednesday blaming them for an attack that killed five people at a defence firm near Ankara.
A further 22 people were wounded in the attack, which the government said was "very likely" carried out by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
Hours later, "an air operation was carried out against terrorist targets in the north of Iraq and Syria," the defence ministry said in a statement.
"A total of 32 targets belonging to the terrorists were successfully destroyed."
The US-backed SDF spearheaded the campaign that dislodged Islamic State group jihadists from their last scraps of Syrian territory in 2019.
Turkey sees the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), which dominate the SDF, as an offshoot of the PKK.
Turkish troops and allied rebel factions control swathes of northern Syria following successive cross-border offensives since 2016, most of them targeting the SDF.
(AFP)
Kurdistan in the Modern Middle East: Territorial Reduction from Persianisation, Arabisation, Turkification, Assimilation, and Internal Colonisation
Source Towards an Independent Kurdistan: Self-Determination in International Law
Sundanese rebel group kills at least 120
in deadliest civil conflict
Oct. 26 (UPI) -- More than 120 people were killed and 200 more wounded after a paramilitary group in Sudan attacked a rural village, the deadliest in the 18-month conflict.
The Sudanese Rapid Support Forces or RSF carried out the random attacks, reportedly against civilians in the village of al-Seraiha in Sudan's al-Gezira State Friday.
RSF is supported by Qatar!
State officials said Saturday at least 240 people had been injured during the attack.
Local media reported heavily-armed RSF soldiers opened fire indiscriminately against unarmed villagers. Approximately 150 other people have been detained by RSF forces.
Over the course of the conflict, the RSF has taken control of large parts of the Northeast African country as it clashes with the Sudanese Armed Forces.
Earlier this month, the United States sanctioned a senior RSF leader, accusing him of acquiring and distributing weapons to militia groups, furthering the bloody civil war.
On Thursday, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Sudanese Armed Forces weapon procurement director Mirghani Idris Suleiman.
The Treasury accused Suleiman of "perpetuating violence, and prolonging the fighting in Sudan."
The civil conflict erupted in August 2023 when the Sudanese army clashed with RSF soldiers following years of heightened tensions. The country's former three-decade dictator, President Omar al-Bashir was deposed in a civilian-backed coup in 2019.
More than 20,000 civilians have been killed since the conflict began, according to the World Health Organization. The situation in the country has turned into one of the world's greatest humanitarian crises.
The United States has accused both sides in the conflict of committing war crimes and attempted on several occasions to broker a peace agreement.
10 Iranian border guards killed by unknown attackers
Oct. 26 (UPI) -- Ten Iranian border guards were killed Saturday in the southeast part of the country by unknown attackers, state media reported.
Armed attackers descended on two patrol groups of soldiers and police officers in the border province of Sistan-Baluchestan, around 745 miles southeast of the capital city of Tehran, according to the Tehran Times.
No group had yet to claim responsibility for the attack as of 11:30 a.m. EDT Saturday.
The province is the country's second largest and borders Pakistan and Afghanistan. and armed clashes with drug traffickers or groups from the country's Sunni Islam minority population are common.
Iranian border officers also routinely encounter confrontations with the country's minority Baluch population. There are close to 6.9 million of the nomadic ethnic group in neighboring Pakistan and 2 million in Iran.
Iranian officials have called for a full investigation into the deadly attack, which the country is referring to as an ambush.
The incident comes as Iran weathered overnight missile strikes launched by Israel. The strikes were in retaliation to Iranian ballistic missile barrages on Israel earlier in the month.
In April, 11 people were killed in two separate incidents in Pakistan's Balochistan region near the Iranian border.
Death toll from Balochistan uprising raised to 70
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