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Iran deports 2,800 Afghan children last year

Iran deports 2,800 Afghan children last year

author avatar
10 Apr 2014 - 19:09
Iran deports 2,800 Afghan children last year
author avatar
10 Apr 2014 - 19:09

HERAT CITY (Pajhwok): The Afghanistan Human Rights Commission on Thursday expressed concern over the deportation of more than 2,800 Afghan children into western Afghanistan from neighbouring Iran last year.

Abdul Qadir Rahimi, the watchdog’s head in Herat, said they had interviewed all the deportees, who left behind their parents in Iran.

Rahimi confirmed among the deported children some had been sent to Iran by their parents through human traffickers.

The children deported in 2013 are aged between 14 and 18 years, with Rahimi claiming they had been physical abused by Iranian border officials before their deportation.

He called the physical abuse of the children as a matter of great concern.  

One of the deportees, Aimal, 12, said, “The Iranian police arrested me, beat me and locked me in a jail for some days on the accusation that I work for drug smugglers before they deported me to Afghanistan.”

The boy said he often dreamt his parents searching for him and worried about him.

Aimal is one of hundreds of Afghan children who have been forcibly deported to Afghanistan, with their parents still living in Iran.

Ajmal currently lives at a refugee camp established by International Organization for Migration (IOM) in the port city of Islam Qala that borders Iran.

mrh/ma

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