00:21and despite the dire conditions in many parts back home,
00:26more than 1.4 million have returned or been forced to return to Afghanistan since the start of the year,
00:33says the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
00:37Here's a clip from Herat province last Friday.
00:43Today, we've received close to 30,000 individuals returning from Iran into Afghanistan.
00:51This number is beyond our capacity.
00:53This number is beyond our preparedness planning.
00:5725% of all returns are children, and these are children that need our support.
01:02But more importantly for us is the proportion of unaccompanied and separated children in the midst.
01:08For more, let's cross to Copenhagen.
01:10Franco-Afghan journalist Mortaza Bedboudi is an author in French of Women Life Freedom,
01:15a reporter infiltrated in the heart of the Iranian uprising.
01:20Thanks for being with us here on France 24.
01:24Hello. Thank you, Francois.
01:26First off, first you had Pakistan sending back Afghans.
01:30Now you have Iranians. Is it the same story?
01:35Exactly. It's the same story because there's two governments,
01:39or Pakistani government or the Iranian government,
01:41they are looking to put the blame on someone.
01:44Many times ago, Iran is right now is going through a very deep crisis, economic crisis.
01:52The young people, they cannot find jobs, and the government is under the pressure after the war with Israel.
01:58And now they're looking, okay, who are we going to put the blame on?
02:02And there are Afghan refugees again and again.
02:05It's not the first time. It was also the other times.
02:09And at the same time, the media, the state media in Iran,
02:12they are spreading the rumors that saying that some Afghans arrested, spying for Israel.
02:18And the people now, because they're censored everywhere, they cannot see the other side of the media.
02:23They're listening to the state media in Iran and saying that all the Afghan refugees are spying for Israel.
02:28They have been beaten, Afghans.
02:30Right now, the discrimination is raising in Iran.
02:32Afghan refugees, they're scared to go outside.
02:36They've been arrested everywhere, even the Iranian neighbors.
02:40They're calling the police to come to arrest them.
02:43And the worst thing is that the many shops denies to sell to Afghan refugees right now.
02:49They cannot travel inside the country.
02:52And also, many employees, I mean, the employees, they refuse to pay them the salaries.
02:59And some of them also, the landlords, they don't want to pay them the deposit when they are leaving the country.
03:07We can hear some of the resentment from Afghans crossing back into Herod province.
03:13Let's hear a clip, one man explaining how his Iran experiences left a bitter taste.
03:22I have no desire at all ever to go back to Iran because the way Iran treats all foreign nationals,
03:28especially our Afghan brothers.
03:31No other country does that.
03:33They say they're Afghanistan's neighbor, that they're an Islamic republic.
03:36But this isn't Islam.
03:38If they truly followed Islam, they wouldn't treat fellow Muslims like this.
03:43Okay, so he says there that he's got no desire to return to Iran.
03:48When he's going back to Afghanistan, what can he expect?
03:52Francois, first of all, these people, they are, you know, the Iran is a Shia majority living there, Muslim Shia majority.
04:01And many Shia majority, the minority, mostly Hazara's people, they fled Afghanistan, seeking refuge in Iran.
04:08And they stayed there.
04:09They've been living for decades now.
04:11They have to leave.
04:12They don't have anything in Afghanistan.
04:14Nothing left there.
04:15Many among them, thousands of women.
04:17They fled Taliban since the Taliban take over.
04:22Then this woman, I talked to them, many of them in Tehran, is still in a big city.
04:27They're still living, hiding.
04:30They don't know what to do.
04:31If this woman forced to leave the country, Iran, to go back to Afghanistan, they face flogging.
04:38They face recession and detention.
04:41Seeing the worst being tortured by Taliban themselves.
04:43And while going back there in Afghanistan, they don't have any houses.
04:47The weather is extremely warm now in Tehran.
04:51It goes even the maximum to 50 Celsius.
04:54And in this warm weather, they are all abandoned on the streets.
04:57This is the humanitarian crisis.
04:59Even the international individuals are alerting on this.
05:02The Taliban, they cannot solve this problem.
05:03They don't have houses to bring them.
05:05They don't have the money to fit them while they are living the crisis since they arrived in Afghanistan.
05:12Yeah, what do you do if you're an unaccompanied woman who has to return back to Afghanistan?
05:18What's the strategy?
05:21I mean, right now, they were allowed to study in Iran with student visas.
05:27They were allowed to work with a work permit.
05:29Now, they go to Afghanistan.
05:31Nothing left for them in Afghanistan.
05:33They've been forced to go back.
05:35Okay, now they cannot continue studying.
05:37They cannot go to school.
05:38They cannot walk freely without a male guardian.
05:42And if they do so, if anyone, this woman, they're born, they grew up in Iran, they lived in Iran since four years, Taliban.
05:51I mean, they've been caught breaking these rules.
05:54They forced the public, they face this public flogging in Afghanistan, the Taliban.
05:59They say now, okay, they're welcoming them.
06:02They're saying they're making this story, the forced displacement, they're making this out of this story.
06:08They're saying that, see, the refugees are returning.
06:12The Europeans, the international community must recognize us.
06:16They're making another story out of this crisis.
06:19And how have these returns, have they had any impact on relations between the Taliban and Islamabad and between the Taliban and Tehran?
06:33Yeah, I mean, now the Tehran is using these Afghans since many years.
06:40Now they are not useful anymore.
06:42These Afghan refugees living in Iran since years and decades, they've been used to join this Fatimian brigade,
06:49where they were fighting for Assad's regime, and it was founded in 2012.
06:58But now they are not useful anymore.
07:00They put the blame on them, and they send him back.
07:02The Taliban, they are trying to get recognized by their allies.
07:09The first country, Russia, recognized them.
07:12They're the first country publicly announced that.
07:15Iran is supporting them.
07:17Pakistan are supporting them.
07:18That's why they are now forcing the refugees to go back, return to Afghanistan in such a situation.
07:23How do you explain that?
07:24How do you explain the fact that Russia, in the end, became the first ones to recognize the Taliban?
07:30Russia is the first country now, the first ambassador, the Taliban ambassador, welcomed him to Moscow.
07:38Now the ambassadors open, the Taliban representative is in Russia.
07:43Russia wants to open more and more relations with Taliban against the Westerns.
07:48And they're against the Westerns because they want to have more allies.
07:54While we have the Russia in Afghanistan, we have Iran, we have Pakistan, we have all the regions.
08:00They're all anti-US.
08:02These countries, anti-US countries, they want to all get together to being a powerful source in the region in order to support each other.
08:11Now we saw the Taliban, the Iranian support the Taliban, the Russians support the Taliban, the Pakistani army support the Taliban to take over Afghanistan.
08:21But now they're, the other side, now the Russians recognizing them.
08:26Iran is helping Taliban by sending back refugees to the country.
08:30Pakistan is the government, the same.
08:32All is the same story, really, being anti-US.
08:37Let me ask you before we go, I want your reaction, Murtaza Baboudi, to the other story that we just covered there with that report,
08:46which is this 18-year-old Franco-German who has gone missing, had gone on a sort of cross-continental bicycle trip.
08:58Your thoughts on people still coming in despite warnings not to go to Iran or Afghanistan, for that matter, on vacation.
09:10There are still people who want to come.
09:13I mean, the Iranian government or the Taliban government, they are both of them, they are inviting tourists to come.
09:19We have more and more Chinese tourists in Afghanistan.
09:22While with the insecurity, we saw that, we experienced that for a Spanish tourist who has been shot in Bamian city, in Afghanistan, during the Taliban regime, a few years ago, in Iran.
09:36Iran is arresting more and more Western nationals.
