Iran sets up camps along Afghanistan border as Taliban advance

Afghan immigrants who settled in Kasim Abad village in Rey district in the southeast of the capital Tehran, are seen on December 17, 2020 in Tehran, Iran [Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu Agency]

Iran said on Sunday it has prepared accommodation in three provinces bordering Afghanistan to provide temporary refuge to Afghans fleeing their country as Taliban insurgents enter the capital Kabul, reports Reuters.

“Camps have been built in border areas in three provinces,” Interior Ministry official Hossein Qasemi told Iran’s state news agency IRNA.

But he added that: “We expect those Afghan refugees to return home when the situation improves in Afghanistan.”

Afghanistan’s oil-rich western neighbour Iran has for years been a destination for Afghans seeking work or fleeing war.

But the state of Iran’s economy, long stifled by US sanctions, has persuaded Tehran to encourage many of the more than 2 million Afghan refugees in the country to return home.

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