According to provincial government spokesman Ahmadullah Muttaqi and local police, at least 71 people have died in western Afghanistan as a result of a passenger bus carrying refugees who had recently been deported from neighboring Iran collided with a truck and motorcycle.
Police in Herat province claimed on Tuesday that the bus’s “excessive speed and negligence” was to blame.
The Afghans who have been deported or forced out of Iran in recent months are among a large number.
The accident occurred one day after Eskandar Momeni, the country’s interior minister, declared that 800,000 people would have to leave by the end of March.
Afghans who had recently left Iran and were headed for Kabul, according to provincial official Mohammad Yousuf Saeedi, who spoke to the AFP news agency on Tuesday. He added that all of the passengers climbed into the border crossing point in Islam Qala.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the head of the Taliban government, confirmed to the dpa news agency that the victims had been deported from Iran, but added that no additional information was available at this time.
A motorcycle was also involved, according to police in the Guzara district outside the city of Herat, Afghanistan.
The majority of the fatalities occurred on the bus, but two other fatalities occurred in the truck as well as two more fatalities occurred on motorcycles.
Afghanistan’s high rate of traffic accidents is largely attributable to its lack of regulation, hazardous driving on highways, and decades of war-torn roads.
At least 52 people were killed in two bus accidents in central Afghanistan last December, which involved a truck and a fuel tanker.
Numerous Afghans travel to Iran each year without obtaining a visa due to conflict, persecution, poverty, and high unemployment. Many people work in low-wage jobs in large cities, including on construction sites, where their labor is regarded as cheap and trustworthy.
Since Iran’s undocumented refugee status expires on July 6th, nearly 450, 000 Afghans have returned from Iran, according to the UNHCR.
As the impoverished country, which has been under hardline Taliban rule since 2021, struggles to integrate waves of returnees from Pakistan and Iran since 2023, in the midst of one of the worst humanitarian crises in history.
More than 1.4 million people have “returned or been forced to return to Afghanistan” this year alone, according to the UNHCR. Parmi the roughly 6 million Afghan residents that Tehran claims, Iran’s late May directive has potential to affect 4 million undocumented Afghans.
Source: Aljazeera
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