On Thursday, October 17th, 2024, The United Nations’ Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) called for an investigation into a group of Afghan migrants who had been fired upon and killed on the border with Iran on October 14th-15th. UNAMA expressed their concerns over the violation of the rights of the migrants. Tolo News stated that dozens were killed when more than 200 Afghan migrants were attacked after they illegally entered Iran. Hassan Kazemi Qomi, the Iranian ambassador to Afghanistan, denied the attack had happened in a post on the social media app X. Later Tolo News quoted an “Iranian human rights organization” who claimed that guards on the Iranian border had attacked the migrants. Iran and Pakistan have both heavily restricted the flow of refugees into their countries.
After this attack, more refugees might start to try and enter Pakistan rather than Iran, but with both countries restricting Afghan migrants into their countries, this will cause more conflict along their borders.
Iran and Afghanistan should both prepare for more media coverage on the human rights situations in their countries. They both should also expect UN interventions due to their human rights violations if tensions on their border continue to rise.
This connects to what we have been discussing in class through the Security Dilemma. Migrants who are fleeing to Iran to escape the human rights violations in Afghanistan are protected by international law, but allegedly the Iranian military had opened fire on them. They say that Iran broke international law, but without a “world police” there is no way of punishing Iran for the attack and there is no way of punishing the Afghanistan Taliban for their human rights violations.