Three Afghan migrants die of cold while trying to reach Iran

Three Afghans attempting to clandestinely reach Iran died of cold in Herat province in western Afghanistan, a local army official said Saturday.

"The three people who wanted to cross the border died because of the cold," the official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity, adding that a shepherd was also found dead in the mountainous area due to freezing temperatures.

The migrants were part of a group trying to cross into Iran on Wednesday in the Kohsar region. Stopped by Afghan border guards, some in the group reported that three people had lost their lives. "Searches took place on Wednesday night, but the bodies were only found on Thursday," the army official said.

More than 1.8 million Afghans have been pushed to return to Afghanistan by Iranian authorities between January and the end of November 2025, according to the latest figures from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which said the majority were "forced returns."

Pakistan, which also borders Afghanistan, is also running an expulsion campaign against Afghan migrants, with more than 850,000 of them returning — often with nothing — since the beginning of 2025.

"These mass returns under adverse circumstances have further strained already limited services and resources in Afghanistan and can lead to the risk of new displacements, including movements back to Pakistan or Iran," the UNHCR highlighted on its page dedicated to the Afghanistan situation.

Hit by two major earthquakes in recent months, under international sanctions in part because of the exclusion of women from many jobs and public spaces — which the UN has called "gender apartheid" — and highly vulnerable to climate change, Afghanistan now has more than 17 million people facing acute food insecurity, the United Nations World Food Programme announced Tuesday.

The NGO Amnesty International on Tuesday urged states not to return Afghans to Afghanistan because of "human rights violations" in the country and the severe humanitarian crisis.