5Pillars:

By Alen Bašić

An Iranian official announced that around 1.6 million undocumented Afghans have been deported from the country since Tehran launched a crackdown on unauthorised migrants amid growing security concerns.

Nader Yar-Ahmadi, the head of Iran’s Centre for Foreign Nationals and Immigrants Affairs at the Ministry of Interior, announced the figure, stating that the 1.6 million Afghans had been deported since the government launched a campaign targeting undocumented migrants.

Previously, there were estimated to be 6.1 million Afghans present in Iran, but since the mass-scale deportations in 2025, the number has significantly dropped.

“These individuals have been removed from the total number of Afghan nationals in the country,” Yar-Ahmadi told Iran’s ISNA news agency. “If we subtract the 1.6 million deported from the estimated 6.1 million Afghans previously present, about 4.5 million remain in Iran.”

Yar-Ahmadi added that there are also considered to be between 400,000 and 500,000 Afghans labelled as a “floating population,” as they continuously cross over Iran’s borders.

Despite intensified enforcement restrictions from Iranian border police, the entry of undocumented Afghan migrants has recently increased since September, Yar-Ahmadi added.

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