450,000 Afghans sent back from Tehran, governor says

“Those without legal documents were identified and transferred to border crossings shared with Afghanistan and returned to their own country,” Mohammad Sadegh Motamedian told reporters on Saturday.

“Managing foreign nationals was one of the priorities of the government,” he said, adding that half of all foreign nationals in the country reside in Tehran province, prompting a province-wide identification effort.

Last year, more than 6,000 classrooms in the province were used by over 220,000 foreign national students, according to the governor.

“This year, families can register their children in those schools, which means existing educational capacity without building new schools will be available to our own students.”

In late July, Amnesty International called on Iran’s interior minister to take urgent action to halt the expulsions of Afghans.

The group said more than one million Afghans, including Iran-born individuals and long-term residents, had been forcibly returned to Afghanistan in recent months. Amnesty linked the mass returns to the escalation of hostilities between Israel and Iran, saying over half a million Afghans had been expelled since June 1, including thousands of unaccompanied children.

The organization said millions more remain at risk, particularly women and girls, who “must be treated as prima facie refugees and not returned to Afghanistan, where the Taliban are committing the crime against humanity of gender persecution against them.”

In previous remarks, Iranian officials have framed deportations as part of efforts to regulate residency and ease pressure on public services in areas with high concentrations of foreign nationals.