Deadly Traffic Accident Claims 73 Lives in Western Afghanistan
In a tragic incident in western Afghanistan, a traffic accident has claimed the lives of 73 individuals, including 17 children. The majority of the victims were on a bus carrying Afghan migrants who were being deported from Iran, as confirmed by a Taliban official.
The fatal accident occurred when the bus, heading towards Kabul, caught fire on Tuesday night after colliding with a truck and motorcycle in Herat province. Ahmadullah Mottaqi, the Taliban’s director of information and culture in Herat, reported that everyone on board the bus, as well as two individuals from the other vehicles, lost their lives.
Iran has recently increased its deportations of undocumented Afghan migrants who have sought refuge from conflict in their homeland. “All the passengers were migrants who had boarded the vehicle in Islam Qala,” stated provincial governor spokesman Mohammad Yousuf Saeedi.
According to Herat police, the accident was a result of the bus driver’s “excessive speed and negligence”. Traffic accidents are a common occurrence in Afghanistan, where road conditions have been severely impacted by decades of conflict and driving regulations are not strictly enforced.
Since the 1970s, millions of Afghans have fled to neighboring countries like Iran and Pakistan, with significant waves of migration during key events such as the Soviet invasion in 1979 and the recent return of the Taliban to power in 2021.
Iran’s actions towards Afghan refugees have led to growing anti-Afghan sentiment in the country, with refugees facing discrimination. The recent spike in deportations follows a brief conflict with Israel in June, where Iranian authorities forcibly returned hundreds of thousands of Afghans citing national security concerns.
More than 1.5 million Afghans have left Iran since the beginning of the year, with some families having resided in the country for generations. Experts warn that Afghanistan lacks the resources to accommodate the increasing number of nationals being forcibly returned to a country under Taliban rule.
“The return of so many people is creating additional strain on already stretched resources, especially at a time when Afghanistan is grappling with aid cuts,” highlighted Arshad Malik, the country director of Save the Children Afghanistan. — BBC
