Hundreds Protest Afghan Migrant Drownings at Iran Border

A man wearing clothes spattered in blood takes part in a demonstration against the Iranian regime demanding justice for Afghan workers believed to have been killed by Iranian border guards. (EPA)
A man wearing clothes spattered in blood takes part in a demonstration against the Iranian regime demanding justice for Afghan workers believed to have been killed by Iranian border guards. (EPA)
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Hundreds Protest Afghan Migrant Drownings at Iran Border

A man wearing clothes spattered in blood takes part in a demonstration against the Iranian regime demanding justice for Afghan workers believed to have been killed by Iranian border guards. (EPA)
A man wearing clothes spattered in blood takes part in a demonstration against the Iranian regime demanding justice for Afghan workers believed to have been killed by Iranian border guards. (EPA)

Hundreds of people protested outside the Iranian consulate in western Afghanistan Monday over the deaths of several migrants who were forced into a river by Iranian border guards and drowned.

Afghan officials claim the migrants died while they were illegally crossing into neighboring Iran from Herat province earlier this month.

Eighteen bodies, some bearing signs of torture and beatings, have been recovered from the Harirud river so far, Gulran district governor Abdul Ghani Noori told AFP last week.

Noori said 55 migrants were forced into the river.

A government-backed probe is under way, but Iranian authorities have dismissed the claims, saying the incident occurred inside Afghanistan's territory.

"Death to (President Hassan) Rouhani, Death to (Ali) Khamenei," chanted protesters outside the consulate in Herat's provincial capital of the same name.

"These Afghan laborers, who had gone for a morsel of food, were viciously and brutally killed by the Iranians and thrown into the river," Nafisa Danish, an activist at the protest, told AFP.

"Where are the human rights? This Iranian massacre should be condemned."

Another protester Suraya Ahmadi called on Afghan, UN and Iranian authorities to probe the case.

"We staged this protest to condemn the killing of our people who went to Iran to support their families," Ahmadi said.

Forensic evidence and survivor accounts show the Iranian border guards first flogged the victims with wire cables then forced them at gunpoint to jump into the river, Noori said last week.

The Afghan Human Rights Commission has said the Iranian guards made the migrants cross the Harirud river and "as a result a number of them drowned".

The United States, which frequently trades threats with Iran and has imposed strict sanctions on the country, has backed the Kabul administration's decision to investigate the incident.

"Iran's cruel treatment and abuse of Afghan migrants alleged in these reports is horrifying," US Acting Assistant Secretary for South Asia Alice Wells said on Twitter last week.

Between 1.5 million and three million Afghan refugees live and work in Iran, most of them as wage laborers on construction projects.

Tens of thousands returned to Afghanistan after the coronavirus outbreak, but as restrictions ease in badly hit Iran, many are again seeking work there.



Israel Says Campaign on Iran to Intensify as Tehran Pledges 'Destructive' Attacks

A building stands damaged in the aftermath of Israeli strikes, in Tehran, Iran, June 14, 2025. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
A building stands damaged in the aftermath of Israeli strikes, in Tehran, Iran, June 14, 2025. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
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Israel Says Campaign on Iran to Intensify as Tehran Pledges 'Destructive' Attacks

A building stands damaged in the aftermath of Israeli strikes, in Tehran, Iran, June 14, 2025. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
A building stands damaged in the aftermath of Israeli strikes, in Tehran, Iran, June 14, 2025. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

Israel pounded Iran for a second day on Saturday and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said its campaign would intensify, while Tehran stated that "heavy and destructive" attacks by Iran against Israel were expected within the coming hours.

Netanyahu said Israel's strikes had set back Iran's nuclear program possibly by years and rejected international calls for restraint.

"We will hit every site and every target of the Ayatollahs' regime, and what they have felt so far is nothing compared with what they will be handed in the coming days," he said in a video message.

In Tehran, Iranian authorities said around 60 people, including 29 children, were killed in an attack on a housing complex, with more strikes reported across the country. Israel said it had attacked more than 150 targets.

Iran had launched its own retaliatory missile volley on Friday night, killing at least three people in Israel. Air raid sirens sent Israelis into shelters as waves of missiles streaked across the sky and interceptors rose to meet them.

In the first apparent attack to hit Iran's energy infrastructure, Iranian media reported a fire on Saturday after Israel bombed the South Pars gas field in southern Bushehr province. The semi-official Tasnim news agency said some gas production there was suspended following the attack.

"If (Supreme Leader Ali) Khamenei continues to fire missiles at the Israeli home front, Tehran will burn," Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said.

Iran said 78 people were killed on the first day and scores more on the second.

A military official on Saturday said Israel had caused significant damage to Iran's nuclear facilities at Natanz and Isfahan, but had not so far taken on another uranium enrichment site, Fordow, dug into a mountain.

The official said Israel had "eliminated the highest commanders of their military leadership" and had killed nine nuclear scientists who were "main sources of knowledge, main forces driving forward the (nuclear) program.”

Satellite images analyzed by The Associated Press revealed some of the damage sustained by Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal in an Israeli attack on the country.

Images from Planet Labs PBC taken Friday showed damage at two missile bases, one in Kermanshah and one in Tabriz, both in western Iran.