Afghans who have lived in Iran for years — some for decades — do not intend to go home. They continue to seek refuge in Iran, even as the country is organizing forced returns back to Afghanistan.

Interview with Jean-Guy Vataux, program director for MSF in Iran, following his return from Zahedan.

What is MSF is doing in Zahedan?

Today, Iran hosts 900,000 legally registered Afghan refugees on its soil, and more than 1.5 million Afghans without a legal status — a figure that is impossible to verify. Most of them arrived in the early 80s, fleeing the war with the Soviet Union. Today they keep on arriving mostly for economic reasons, such as the drought that has hit several provinces in Afghanistan.

In 2001 we started to provide free healthcare to Afghan immigrants who had no access to medical care, and provided new arrivals with some material aid to help them settle down. We are now working in three health centres in the poor neighbourhoods of Zahedan, capital of Sistan Baluchistan province. In this town, located near the Pakistan and Afghan borders, one third of the 600,000 inhabitants are of Afghan origin.

We have also set up a referral system for patients who need to be admitted to hospital or who need to consult a specialist. A mobile team seeks out people who are newly arrived to provide them with aid, as they are more vulnerable on a medical, social and economic basis.

How does Iran absorb this flow of migrants?

For several years, the authorities have been worrying about the large number of immigrants in their country. Their first response was to promote voluntary returns, but they then adopted a more aggressive policy by escorting people back to the border.

In 2007 more than 350,000 illegal Afghan immigrants were forced to go back to their country, where the economic and security situation remains difficult. In the past five months, at least 150,000 people, mostly men, have been sent back to Afghanistan.

Zahedan has been declared a “no go area” for foreigners, as have all other regions bordering Afghanistan. Claiming insecurity, suspicion of terrorist activity, and trafficking of all kinds, Iranian authorities now forbid foreigners to stay in that part of the country. To keep benefiting from their status, legal immigrants have to renew their residence permits and then move to other areas of the country, even though there is nothing set up to assist them.

Although the authorities officially grant them this renewal, they are very reserved about the process and provide few means to carry it out. In order to stay in Zahedan or in other forbidden provinces, we fear that many legal Afghan refugees fall into illegality, which exposes them to raids and forced returns. Recently, the authorities announced a massive operation to escort people back to the border, but have committed not to expel our patients suffering from chronic diseases.

Do other actors provide aid to these populations?

One would think so, considering that with 900,000 officially recognised refugees, Iran absorbs a large part of the total number of Afghan refugees abroad, not to mention those residing illegally, who are far more numerous. Yet the Iranian authorities are virtually alone in handling the influx of migrants into their territory.

International funding agencies have promised US $20 million in assistance to help reconstruct Afghanistan, but Afghan refugees still receive very little aid. While the Iranian authorities claim to spend US $6 a day for every Afghan refugee, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) spends the same amount in one year. At the same time the UNHCR delights at the negligible efforts by the Mexican, South African, Italian and Norwegian embassies, who try to raise awareness of the issue by organizing charity concerts or clothing drives!

The contrast is striking: so much money to reconstruct a country, yet so little to help its population. And as for the Afghan authorities, all they do is quietly deplore the toughening Iranian immigration policy, as they are unable to cope with the massive returns. In this political and economic imbroglio, few are interested in bringing to light the fate of Afghan migrants.