Two weeks after reports emerged that a number of Afghan migrants were killed after Iranian border guards opened fire at them, the Taliban administration has confirmed the incident.
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.
