Gulnisa holds her husband’s residency card as she stands at the gates of the Askarabad detention camp. “If he returns, the Taliban will kill him. He was a soldier in the former government,” she pleads with a hoarse voice. “Why does no one hear us?” Her husband is one of thousands of Afghan refugees detained by the Iranian government in recent weeks. For the hours I was there, Gulnisa stood, trapped in fear and uncertainty, outside the camp that has become the final stop for countless Afghan refugees on their forcible return journey to Afghanistan over the past two decades.
She is from Baghlan province. She says her husband was arrested the previous afternoon. “The United Nations gives money to Iran to protect us, but we never see any of it,” she explains. “My husband served in the previous government and should be protected. The UN has given Iran a list of such individuals.”
Many like her husband fled Afghanistan to escape Taliban retribution. Human rights organizations warn that forced returns could put thousands at risk of arrest, torture, or execution. He’s one of thousands of former military personnel who fled Afghanistan for the relative safety of Iran. Now, many fear being returned. On May 18, a former pilot in the Afghan army died by suicide in Iran, reportedly after receiving a deportation notice, according to Afghanistan International. Sources told the outlet that Mohammad Amir Tawasoli, 40, took his own life due to fear of potential reprisals by the Taliban.
Gulnisa’s husband is one of thousands swept up in Iran’s operation to deport 2.2 million Afghan refugees. In what has become the largest deportation campaign in Iran’s history, arrests were often carried out by plainclothes officers without court orders, and through sudden raids on homes, workshops, and office buildings. No Afghan is safe from detention – not women, not children, not even those with valid documents.
The Askarabad detention camp is located 57 kilometers southeast of Tehran, near the Qal’eh Gabri, the world’s largest adobe fortress, which is more than 1,500 years old. Adjacent to the camp is a long waiting hall, divided by a glass wall that separates visitors from officials. A large sign proclaims: “Entry of Iranian nationals is strictly prohibited!” No one is behind the counter to address the waiting crowd of family and friends of the detained.
A woman rushes in, clutching the hand of her disabled daughter, shouting in panic, “They took my son this morning on his way to school. Where should I go? This is his residency card!” Her voice trembles while her eyes are wide with terror.
A red minibus arrives, packed with detainees. As the camp gate opens, a worried mother searches desperately for her son: “They took my 11-year-old yesterday when they raided the workshop he worked at. He has no phone, and doesn’t know anyone’s number. Only his boss called to tell us.”
There is no mention of these detained children on the UNHCR website for Iran. Instead, the site states: “Thanks to the progressive and inclusive policies of the Islamic Republic, Afghan refugees have access to education, healthcare, and livelihood opportunities.” That it is a claim worlds apart from the reality unfolding behind the gates of Askarabad and the streets of south Tehran.
A boy of about 10 or 11 years old pounds his small fists on the iron gate, as he shouts, “Send me to Afghanistan, too! You deported my family, what am I supposed to do here alone?” No one responds. The gate stays shut.
Hadia sits on the curb across from the camp. While she was born in Iran and has legal residency, her husband has been detained for four days. “The officers shouted things like ‘Get lost, you sons of bitches, dog bastards’ and threw us out of the hall,” she explains. “They treat us shamefully. They even grope women. Last time, even though my husband showed his documents, they beat him badly. They don’t even spare their fellow Iranians — once they mistakenly detained my Iranian coworker, even though he had a national ID.”
Most of those detained are Hazara. Among the crowd, a young man named Haroon hands out bottles of water and paper cups. “We live in a European country. We came to Iran on a tourist visa for my mother’s eye surgery and to see family. Last night, my brother was arrested while returning to our lodging. He showed them his visa on his phone, but the officers didn’t accept it.”
“Is this hospitality? We came as tourists, to the country we once lived in!” his mother shouts in despair. Haroon gently tries to calm her, hoping her distress might help get his brother released.
Standing nearby is Omid, a teenager whose father has been detained twice in two weeks even though he has residency due to an Iranian government scheme that promised legal status to investors. “They said, ‘Invest 150 million tomans to get residency.’ We did. Then the program was halted. Now our money is frozen and we’re left in limbo,” Omid says.
“Last week they even deported two Iranians,” he adds, with an air of disbelief. “The system is a mess. Three years ago, they mistakenly deported a deaf and mute Iranian man to Afghanistan. His family spent years trying to find him. Only recently did they bring him back.”
The gate opens. Twenty to 30 people are released. As mothers embrace their children, others rush forward to ask the newly released Afghans for the news of their loved ones still inside. Many of the freed don’t want to speak: “No, no, no. We just want to leave.”
Three recently released teenage boys stand on the dusty ground across the camp. All were born in Iran and studied through eighth or ninth grade before the pandemic ended their schooling. Now, they drift between seasonal labour and repeated detentions.
“I’ve been detained multiple times. This morning at 7 a.m., I was on my way to work when I got stopped at a checkpoint. We have legal residency, but they keep us detained anyway. If it had been in the evening or during one of the mass arrest days, I would’ve had to sleep in the camp.”
At night, detainees are moved to the camp’s basement, which is a cramped, dark, unsanitary space. “Once, they beat an elderly man with a pipe so badly he never got up again. No one dares speak up. The slightest protest could mean deportation, even with valid papers,” one teenager claims.
Another boy, shielding himself from the sun with a scarf, adds, “To be deported, we have to pay around three million tomans for bus fare. If we can’t, we stay in that basement for weeks, even months.”
In the crowd, an Iranian man holds a stack of documents — papers belonging to workers who have laboured for him for years. “Plainclothes officers stormed my workshop and took eight people. I couldn’t reason with them,” he says. “When I objected, they threatened to arrest me, too. I have to get them out.”
Adel, another Iranian employer, explains why he is at the camp: “Last week, dozens of officers raided the factory. They took 11 of my workers. I got 10 released with their ID papers. But the foreman was deported. He’d worked with my family for nearly 20 years.”
Nearby is a man named Jan Mohammad. He’s lived in Iran since he was 12. He’s worked, raised a family, and built a life in Iran. Now, after 20 years, he has been ordered to leave. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to live there. Everything I know is for living in Iran. What crime have I committed?” he asks. Jan Mohammad has been given two days to report to authorities and receive his deportation date to a country he’s only known for a third of his life. He is one of the refugees included in a mass deportation plan announced last September by Iran’s police chief, Ahmad Reza Radan, which targeted more than two million Afghan refugees.
“The Iranian government has invalidated the residency permits of over two million Afghan refugees and refuses to renew them,” explains Arash Nasr Esfahani, a sociologist and refugee researcher.
According to Esfahani, the government set July 5, 2025 as the deadline for Afghans to leave the country. He notes that the government expects the last deportations to be completed by the end of September. Such a quick timeline signals a coming wave of mass arrests and violent crackdowns.
“The same police once criticized for harassing women over hijab [infractions] is now being praised for arresting Afghan refugees. We’ve returned to the pre-Taliban era,” reflects the university professor.
It is now after 2 p.m. Faces are more tired, eyes more anxious. The crowd outside Askarabad camp has swelled to more than 200 people.
An elderly man introduces himself as “Uncle.” He says he’s from Panjshir and that he and his son fought the Taliban. If Iran were to return his detained son to Afghanistan, then it would be a death sentence. “It’s like they’re hoping we go back so the Taliban can finish us off.”
The lives of hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees in Iran remain suspended — between arrest and release, fear of deportation and a fading hope of staying. Uncle called later that night with an update: his son had been deported.
The names in this article have been changed to protect their security. Homa Majid is Zan Times journalist in Iran.
