Iranian generosity stretched on refugees

Iran is in no position to cope with a fresh influx of Afghans, coming on top of the millions of refugees it has sheltered over the decades, foreign policy experts said in pointing to an economy battered by Western sanctions and the pandemic.

Absorbing more refugees from across the border would prove unsustainable for Iran given its limited resources, the experts said. In light of Iran's constraints, they called on the international community to offer relief and assistance where needed.

Dina Yulianti Sulaeman, director of the Indonesia Center for Middle East Studies, said Iran is sympathetic toward Afghan refugees due to the principle of "brotherhood in Islam".But the country's hosting of millions of refugees, providing them with the same services extended to Iranians, has created a burden on the economy.

"The international community, especially the US and Western NATO members, have an obligation to help Iran because of the crisis in Afghanistan caused by their 20-year occupation. Why should Iran alone bear the impact?" said Sulaeman, who also teaches international relations at Padjadjaran University in Indonesia.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Iran and Pakistan host 90 percent of the Afghan refugees. About 1.4 million of them are in Pakistan and an estimated 780,000 are in Iran. In addition, there are an estimated 2 million undocumented refugees.

On Nov 10, the Norwegian Refugee Council, a humanitarian organization, said humanitarian needs in Iran had risen with the arrival of an estimated 300,000 Afghans since the Taliban took over Afghanistan in August.

Estimating that up to 5,000 Afghans have been fleeing through informal channels daily, the council urged the international community to shoulder more responsibility.

Council Secretary-General Jan Egeland said aid must be scaled up immediately both inside Afghanistan and in neighboring countries. Iran, which the organization commended for hosting displaced Afghans for four decades, cannot be expected to host "so many Afghans with so little support from the international community", Egeland said.

Financial support

The council's appeal comes almost two months after the UN announced pledges of $1.2 billion in financial support at a meeting in Geneva in September.

"The chaotic US withdrawal and return of the Taliban have created a situation in Afghanistan which is fast turning into one of the worst humanitarian crises of the world," said Asif Shuja, an Iran expert and senior research fellow at the Middle East Institute at the National University of Singapore. "This crisis has multiple dimensions: refugees and people's displacement being (some) of them."

Talks on reviving a nuclear deal that Iran struck with world powers in 2015 will resume in Vienna, Austria, on Nov 29. Then-president Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the pact in 2018.

Nagapushpa Devendra, a researcher at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses in New Delhi, said Iran has always been a preferred destination for Afghans, particularly those from the Shia Muslim community, as it has one of the world's most inclusive refugee policies.

According to ACAPS, an independent humanitarian information provider in Geneva, the Iranian government has slowly introduced policies to increase the provision of refugee identity cards.

These cards grant refugees conditional freedom of movement, temporary work permits, and access to education and healthcare systems.

But domestically, Devendra noted, the situation is challenging, given Iran's economic and social issues, such as high inflation and unemployment.

"Then came the pandemic, which caught Iran at its weakest economic state since the end of the war with Iraq three decades ago. Unlike other regional countries, the Iranian government lacked the resources to help its people," Devendra said.