Nazari has worked as a security guard in Tehran for the past eleven months - and was in the country during the twelve-day war between Israel and Iran in June 2025. He describes the latest attacks as “fifty times more powerful.”
Naeemullah Rahimi has also fled Iran after the attacks. He worked as a guard in one of Tehran's suburbs and had to seek shelter from the airstrikes in a basement.
"When we saw how bad the situation was, we had to return," says the 24-year-old after crossing the border at Islam Qala in western Afghanistan.
“Can't starve”
Talibshah, who did not give his last name, worked as a farmer in Qazvin, northern Iran, to support his family. He is now on his way home to Sar-e Pol, northern Afghanistan, even though the drought in his homeland has made farming there virtually impossible.
"If I don't find a job here, I'll have to emigrate again. We have no other choice. We can't starve," he says.
In parallel with the war in Iran, a conflict is underway between Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan, which escalated at the end of February. Since then, more than 50 Afghan civilians have been killed.
They are fleeing a war in Iran and coming to a country that is also at war, says Arafat Jamal, representative of the UN refugee agency UNHCR in Afghanistan.
“Not a good choice”
Since the outbreak of war in Iran on February 28, about 1,700 people have returned to Afghanistan each day. Jamal says there is no good choice for those returning.
They come to a country that is devastated by drought, has unemployment and now also has internal conflicts.
He says that “wave after wave” of Afghans have been expelled from Iran and Pakistan since September 2023. Last year, 2.8 million people returned.
If there were a similar number this year, he doubts the country would be able to cope.
Maybe, but the country needs international support. We cannot afford to let Afghanistan collapse.
