Probe into drowned Afghans
AFGHAN officials yesterday launched a hunt to retrieve the bodies of Afghan migrants from a river in a western province after reports that Iranian border guards tortured and threw Afghans into the river to prevent their entry into Iran.
Afghanistan’s foreign ministry on Saturday said an inquiry had been launched and a senior official in the presidential palace in Kabul said initial assessments suggested that at least 70 Afghans who were trying to enter Iran from bordering Herat province had been beaten and pushed into the Harirud river. The river basin is shared by Afghanistan, Iran and Turkmenistan.
Doctors at Herat District Hospital said they had received the bodies of Afghan migrants, some of whom had drowned.
“So far, five bodies have been transferred to the hospital. Of these bodies, it’s clear that four died due to drowning,” said hospital head Aref Jalali.
The Iranian consulate in Herat denied the allegations of torture and subsequent drowning of dozens of Afghan migrant workers by border police. “Iranian border guards have not arrested any Afghan citizens,” the consulate said on Saturday.
Noor Mohammad said he was one of 57 Afghan citizens who were caught by Iranian border guards on Saturday when they were trying to cross into Iran in search of work.
“After being tortured, the Iranian soldiers threw all of us in the Harirud river,” Mohammad said.
Shir Agha, who said he also survived the violence, said at least 23 of the 57 people thrown by Iranian soldiers into the river were dead.
“Iranian soldiers warned us that if we did not throw ourselves into the water, we would be shot,” Agha said.
Local Afghan officials that it was not the first time that Afghans had been tortured and killed by Iranian police guarding the 920km border. Herat’s governor, Sayed Wahid Qatali, in a tweet to Iranian officials said, “Our people are not just some names you threw into the river. One day we will settle accounts.”
Up to 2 000 Afghans daily cross the border from Iran, a global coronavirus hot spot, into Herat.
Yesterday, 541 infected people were from Herat province, which recorded 13 deaths, the majority of cases found among Afghan returnees from Iran, said Rafiq Shirzad, a health ministry spokesperson in Herat.