Iran has forcibly deported over 1.5 million Afghans since January, with many accused of spying for Israel. The mass expulsions followed Iran’s brief war with Israel in June.
Ali Ahmad lifts his shirt to show dark bruises across his back. Iranian officers beat him with hoses and wooden boards while calling him a spy, he says.
“They treated us like animals,” Ahmad told the BBC at the Afghanistan border. His name was changed to protect him.
Iran hosts more than four million undocumented Afghans who fled conflict at home. The country has stepped up deportations for months, but the pace increased sharply after fighting Israel in June.
Daily deportations peaked at 50,000 people in early July, according to the United Nations. Many Afghans face brutal treatment during detention and removal.
Iranian officials took Ahmad’s money and phone, leaving him “without a single penny to travel back.” He had lived in Iran for two and a half years before his arrest.
The deportations coincide with widespread accusations linking Afghans to Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency. Iranian media reports cite police sources claiming some were arrested for espionage.
“We’re afraid to go anywhere, constantly worried that we might be labeled as spies,” one Afghan told BBC News. The person asked to remain anonymous for safety.
Common accusations include “You Afghans are spies,” “You work for Israel,” or “You build drones in your homes,” according to multiple sources.
Barnett Rubin served as senior adviser to the US State Department on Afghanistan. He says Iran may be “looking for scapegoats” for its failures against Israel.
“The Iranian government is very embarrassed by their security failures,” Rubin explains. The war showed Iran “was thoroughly penetrated by Israeli intelligence.”
Critics say the spy accusations help justify Iran’s plan to deport undocumented Afghans. The claims buy support for mass removals among Iranian citizens.
Abdullah Rezaee has a similar story. About 15 Iranian officers beat him at a detention center, he says. His name was also changed for protection.
“Iranian police tore up my visa and passport and beat me severely. They accused me of being a spy,” Abdullah told the BBC.
He had only been in Iran two months despite having a visa. Officers used plastic batons while saying “You’re a spy, you’re ruining our country.”
Abdullah spent four days in detention that “felt like four years.” He faced constant mistreatment, physical abuse, and little food.
The spy allegations started during the 12-day Israel-Iran conflict in June. On June 13, Israel attacked Iranian nuclear and military sites.
Iranian officials asked citizens to report suspicious activities like unusual van movements. They said these vehicles might transport Israeli weapons.
Telegram channels with large followings posted similar warnings. But they added that people should watch “alien citizens” – a term used for Afghans – driving vans in cities.
The next day, authorities reported detaining people allegedly connected to Israeli attacks, including some Afghans.
On June 16, news channels showed video of Afghans being detained with drones. The footage went viral but was actually old video of migrants detained for lacking documents.
On June 18, a Revolutionary Guard Corps Telegram group claimed 18 Afghans were arrested in Mashhad for building Israeli drones, according to Afghan Witness monitoring group.
The next day, a provincial security chief said the arrests had “no connection to drone-making” or Israel cooperation. “They were arrested solely for being in Iran illegally.”
But social media posts linking arrests to espionage had already spread widely. A hashtag calling for “expulsion of Afghans” was shared over 200,000 times on X in one month.
Anti-Afghan feelings on Iranian social media are not new. But this time “the misinformation is not just coming from social media users but from Iranian-affiliated media,” an Afghan Witness researcher says.
More than 1.5 million Afghans have left Iran since January, UN data shows. Taliban officials say over 918,000 Afghans entered from Iran between June 22 and July 22.
Some deportees had lived in Iran for generations. Millions of Afghans fled to Iran and Pakistan since the 1970s, with major waves during the Soviet invasion in 1979 and Taliban return in 2021.
Experts warn Afghanistan cannot absorb the growing number of forced returnees under Taliban rule. The country already struggles with large numbers returning from Pakistan, which is also expelling hundreds of thousands of Afghans.
Dr. Khadija Abbasi specializes in forced displacement at SOAS in London. She says Afghans were first welcomed in Iran, but anti-Afghan sentiment grew gradually.
State media portrayed Afghan refugees as an “economic burden” to society, Abbasi explains. False stories about Afghan migrants followed.
In the 1990s, rapes and murders in Tehran were wrongly blamed on an Afghan without evidence. This led to hate crimes. The killer was later revealed to be Iranian.
When two million Afghans migrated after 2021, social media posts falsely claimed over 10 million Afghans lived in Iran. Iran was the only neighbor allowing large-scale refugee entry then.
“Expulsion of Afghans from Iran might be one of the very rare topics that most Iranians are in agreement with the government,” Abbasi says.
In July, over 1,300 Iranian and Afghan activists signed a letter calling for an end to “inhumane” treatment of Afghan citizens in Iran.
Today, anti-Afghan sentiment is widespread and “has become very dangerous,” Abbasi notes. “People will just try to stay at home.”
For huge numbers, staying home is no longer possible. The border continues filling with deportees.
Abdullah says deportation destroyed his plans. “I lost everything,” he says.
The mass deportations represent one of the largest forced population movements in recent years. Afghanistan faces a growing humanitarian crisis as Iran intensifies removals while the Taliban struggles to provide basic services for returnees.