'Racist' Treatment of Afghan Migrants Provokes Reaction From Top Iranian Official

So far, two dead and 34 wounded individuals have been transferred to the country after the incident which involved gunfire and explosions on the Iran-Afghanistan border.

Hamdullah Fitrat, the Taliban's deputy spokesman, wrote in a statement on Thursday that Ibrahim Sadr, the group's deputy interior minister, was responsible for leading the investigation into the shooting of Afghan refugees.

The Taliban said that "explosions and shootings" against Afghan refugees took place in the Kalgan Valley area on Iranian soil.

The statement said that a number of other victims of the incident are currently in Iran and Pakistan, and the Taliban's investigative team is seeking to transfer them to Afghanistan.

The Taliban has said that the investigation into the shooting of Afghan migrants by Iranian border guards has not been completed and that further details of the investigation will be published soon.

Haalvsh, a human rights organisation that reports on Sistan and Baluchestan news, published reports regarding the shooting of Afghan migrants for the first time.

The organisation wrote that on Sunday evening, October 13, Iranian border forces opened fire on a group of 300 Afghan migrants who were trying to enter Iran in the Kalgan Saravan area.

According to the report, the incident left "dozens" dead and wounded.
Saravan County is located in Sistan and Baluchestan province and borders Pakistan.

Following the publication of these reports, Richard Bennett, the UN Special Rapporteur for Afghanistan, and the UNAMA mission in Afghanistan, called for an investigation into the reports. In a statement, UNAMA said that the incident took place on October 13.

However, Iranian officials denied the report. Hassan Kazemi Qomi, the Iranian president's special representative for Afghanistan affairs, also said that these reports are not true.

In recent days, Halvash reported that a number of Afghan refugees, including the six wounded in the incident who were targeted by gunfire, have been transferred to Nimroz province.

This is not the first time that Iranian forces have opened fire on Afghan refugees at the border. Earlier, Amnesty International said in a report that Afghan migrants who want to go to safe countries through Iran and Turkiye have been targeted by Iranian and Turkish border forces.

In a report titled "We Are Not Treated Like Human Beings", the organisation said that migrants, including women and children, had been shot "mostly at the Iranian border" when climbing the border fence or crawling under fences.

Bennett said that Canada should emphasise on its positions to improve human rights, especially women's rights, in order to normalise relations with the Taliban.

Richard Bennett, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights, is on a six-day visit to Canada to review the human rights crisis in Afghanistan.

He wrote in a note on the social media network X that during the trip, he met with a number of Afghan citizens, including refugees, activists, and journalists in Toronto and Ottawa.

"I heard from young women and ethnic minorities such as Hazaras, Uzbeks and Turkmens about the brutal treatment they face in the absence of a coherent international strategy to address the dire human rights situation in Afghanistan," said Bennett.

The United Nations also said in a statement that Bennett thanked the Canadian government for the important steps it has taken to hold the Taliban accountable to its international obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.

According to the statement, the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights thanked Canada for accepting 50,000 Afghans since August 2021 and emphasised on the continuation of this support.

Richard Bennett called on Canada to support at-risk Afghans seeking asylum. "I call on Canada to abide by its commitments to rescue programmes and to meet basic humanitarian needs, while ensuring that the principle of avoiding support for terrorist organisations is respected," he said.

Zaidong called on the Pakistani government to launch military operations against all anti-Chinese terrorist groups.

Zaidong on Tuesday (October 30) expressed his dissatisfaction over the security problems in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project and the occurrence of "terrorist" attacks against Chinese citizens. He called two deadly attacks on Chinese employees in Pakistan in the past six months "unacceptable”.

"Under no circumstances can we tolerate repeated attacks, and these attacks have resulted in casualties," the Chinese ambassador to Pakistan said. "Pakistan should take more security measures to protect Chinese employees, institutions and projects."

Zaidong also stressed on the need to punish the perpetrators of these attacks and crack down on anti-China "terrorist" groups.

In the past six months, there have been two attacks against Chinese citizens in Pakistan, one in March and the other 10 days before the Chinese premier's visit to Pakistan, in October.

At the conference, Pakistan's Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar attributed his country's security situation to the "friendly policies" of the previous Pakistani government with Afghanistan. He referred to the visit of Faiz Hameed, the former head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), after the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan.

"We should blame ourselves for the cup of tea we drank in Kabul," Dar said. “We have to blame ourselves for the 102 hardened criminals who were involved in various crimes but were released after a cup of tea," he added.

"We should blame ourselves for the 35,000 to 40,000 terrorists who left Pakistan but returned to the country after the opening of the borders with Afghanistan," he added.

Pakistan's foreign minister and deputy prime minister also stressed that anti-terrorism operations have been launched in the country and its results will be presented soon.

The authorities of the Islamic Republic have not yet commented on the reason for the arrest of this former military man.

Sari was the former police chief of Takhar province. He went to Iran after the return of the Taliban to power.

A number of former military personnel have gone to Iran and Pakistan fearing reprisal from the Taliban, and some of them have been deported to Afghanistan over the past three years due to lack of legal documents. Some of them, who live in Iran and Pakistan, are worried about being deported to the country.

According to reports, a number of former military personnel have been arrested and killed in some cases by the Taliban after being expelled from Iran.

In a recent interview with Afghanistan International, Sari had confirmed that one of Marshal Dostum's commanders was killed after being expelled from Iran.

He was referring to Ezatullah, the former commander of the Junbish-e-Milli Party of Afghanistan, who was murdered in Sar-e-Pul. Ezatullah had fought against the Taliban in northern Afghanistan for years.

In August this year, Sari told Afghanistan International that when commander Ezatullah was expelled from Iran, he was killed instantly. Sari had said that he had a list of former military personnel who were immediately arrested by the Taliban after being expelled from Iran.

The Qatari Foreign Ministry did not mention when the meeting would be organised.

Qatar's Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday (October 30) that its representative met with the UN official in New York.

The Qatari Foreign Ministry said that during the meeting, they stressed on the need to use "positive developments" of the third Doha meeting during the fourth round of the meeting.

The third two-day Doha summit was held in the Qatari capital in July this year under the leadership of UN Under-Secretary-General Rosemary DiCarlo.

Taliban representatives had participated in the third Doha meeting for the first time. Women, civil society, and political opponents of the Taliban were not present at the meeting. The absence of women and civil society members has been widely criticised by international organisations, human rights groups, Afghan women activists, and former officials.

Rosemary DiCarlo, who chaired the third Doha meeting, said that she was fully aware of the criticism of the third Doha meeting.

At the end of the third meeting in Doha, the UN Under Secretary-General emphasised that this process and interaction with the Taliban does not mean the normalisation of relations or the recognition of the Taliban. Rosemary DiCarlo said that it is the policy of the United Nations that people should be at the centre of decision-making and that women are part of the people.