Tehran governor says 1.4 million Afghans deported in six months

Tehran’s governor, Mohammad Sadegh Motamedian, has announced that around 1.4 million undocumented Afghan nationals have been deported from Iran in the past six months, since the start of the Persian year.

Motamedian said the large-scale removals have freed up more than 3,000 classrooms and contributed to a 30–35 percent drop in rental prices, easing pressure on Tehran’s already strained housing and education sectors. He added that a second phase of deportations would begin this week, aimed at what he described as a “comprehensive resolution” of the issue of illegal foreigners.

Iran has hosted millions of Afghans since the early 1980s, when the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan triggered one of the region’s largest refugee movements.

Over the decades, successive waves of conflict—including civil war, Taliban rule, the U.S.-led intervention, and now ongoing instability under the Islamic Emirate—have kept Afghans crossing into Iran in search of safety and work.

According to the UN, Iran currently hosts over three million Afghans, many of them without legal status. While Iranian authorities have repeatedly emphasized the burden on public services, international organizations have expressed concern over the humanitarian impact of mass deportations, particularly as Afghanistan struggles with widespread poverty, food insecurity, and limited capacity to absorb returnees.

The vast number of returning refugees has however impacted Afghanistan’s local systems, which have come under severe strain. Services, such as housing, healthcare, and food) in border provinces are now overstretched.

Many returnees arrive with very few belongings; some are exhausted, traumatized, or in need of urgent assistance.

There is meanwhile growing concern among organizations that unless funding increases the humanitarian situation could worsen further – especially as winter looms.

IOM reports that over 1.5 million Afghans have returned to Afghanistan from Iran alone since the start of 2025.

Last month, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that over four million Afghans have returned from Pakistan and Iran since September 2023. So far this year the total is over 2.3 million combined from the two countries.

Some sources put the number for both countries combined even higher. For example, one IOM update last week states the total in two years has been 2.7 million returns from Iran and Pakistan.