Four years after the Taliban’s return to power, Afghanistan is witnessing a silent catastrophe. Every week, Afghan migrants vanish or are killed along the Iran–Türkiye border. Families in Kabul, Herat, and Mazar wait for news—too often, it arrives in the form of a body. While Iranian and Turkish forces bear part of the blame, the real enabler of this tragedy is the Taliban government itself.
The Regime Driving Afghans Out
Unemployment, repression, and collapsing freedoms have made survival inside Afghanistan unbearable. The Taliban’s policies—banning women from education, crushing dissent, and stifling the economy—leave millions with one desperate choice: flight. Each wave of migrants is proof that the regime has destroyed hope within its borders.
Diplomacy on Paper, Death in Reality
Internal Taliban documents reviewed by Afghanistan International reveal that Kabul’s Foreign Ministry is fully aware of migrant deaths and kidnappings in Iran. Consulates in Mashhad and Tehran regularly report on corpses arriving from the border. Yet the Taliban response is limited to “expressing concerns” in letters—no action, no accountability, no protection.
This paper trail exposes a government that knows the scale of the crisis but refuses, or is unable, to act.
A State Without Authority
Trafficking mafias operate across Iran, preying on Afghans. Iranian border guards beat, detain, and in some cases kill migrants. But the Taliban’s envoys admit privately that they lack the power to demand accountability from Tehran. For the families of the missing, Kabul’s embassies provide little more than condolences and excuses.
Complicity Through Silence
The Taliban’s silence is not accidental—it is complicit. By repressing its own people, driving them to flee, and then failing to defend them abroad, the regime has become both the cause and the collaborator in this humanitarian disaster.
A Nation Abandoned
The numbers are grim: every month, dozens of Afghan bodies are returned from Iran. Every week, new families join the ranks of the grieving. And yet, the Taliban continues to claim it has “restored order” in Afghanistan. In reality, its order is one of despair at home and death abroad.
Until the regime is held accountable, Afghan migrants will remain trapped between two forms of violence: the suffocation of Taliban rule and the brutality of foreign borders.
