DUBAI : Iran summoned the Afghan envoy to Tehran on Tuesday, Iranian state TV reported, a day after protesters threw rocks at Iranian diplomatic missions in Kabul and Herat over what they called “mistreatment of Afghan refugees” in the Islamic Republic.
The protests began after videos posted on Twitter in recent days showed young Afghan refugees in Iran being harassed and humiliated by ordinary Iranians. Reuters could not verify the authenticity of the videos.
Iranian officials on Monday denied there was any mistreatment of Afghan refugees in Iran, state television reported.
“The Afghan charge d’affaires in Tehran was summoned in protest over attacks on the Iranian embassy in Kabul and the Iranian Consulate in Herat in Afghanistan on Monday,” state TV reported.
Footage on social media, which could not be verified by Reuters, showed a small group of Afghan protesters throwing rocks at Iran’s diplomatic missions in Kabul and in the western Afghan city of Herat on Monday.
Iran’s embassy in Afghanistan, in a statement issued on Tuesday, said the Taliban, which rules Afghanistan, are responsible for the security and safety of Tehran’s diplomats and said it would halt consular services in the neighboring country “until further notice,” Iranian state media reported.
But later Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Saeed Khatibzadeh contradicted the embassy’s statement by saying: “All missions of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Afghanistan are open and continue to operate,” Iran’s Students News agency ISNA reported.
Although Iran’s clerical establishment has had generally good relations with the Taliban, there have been longstanding tensions along the two countries’ 900-km (560 miles) joint border, which has active smuggling routes.
Over five million Afghans, both documented and undocumented, live in Iran, Iran’s state news agency IRNA quoted Iranian Foreign Minister Amirabdollahian as saying last week.
Iran summons Afghan envoy after protesters throw rocks at diplomatic missions
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Iran summons Afghan envoy after protesters throw rocks at diplomatic missions
The UN says Al-Hol camp population has dropped sharply as Syria moves to relocate remaining families
The UN says Al-Hol camp population has dropped sharply as Syria moves to relocate remaining families
- Forces of Syria’s central government captured the Al-Hol camp on Jan. 21 during a weekslong offensive against the SDF, which had been running the camp near the border with Iraq for a decade
DAMASCUS: The UN refugee agency said Sunday that a large number of residents of a camp housing family members of suspected Daesh group militants have left and the Syrian government plans to relocate those who remain.
Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, UNHCR’s representative in Syria, said in a statement that the agency “has observed a significant decrease in the number of residents in Al-Hol camp in recent weeks.”
“Syrian authorities have informed UNHCR of their plan to relocate the remaining families to Akhtarin camp in Aleppo Governorate (province) and have requested UNHCR’s support to assist the population in the new camp, which we stand ready to provide,” he said.
He added that UNHCR “will continue to support the return and reintegration of Syrians who have departed Al-Hol, as well as those who remain.”
The statement did not say how residents had left the camp or how many remain. Many families are believed to have escaped either during the chaos when government forces captured the camp from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces last month or afterward.
There was no immediate statement from the Syrian government and a government spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
At its peak after the defeat of IS in Syria in 2019, around 73,000 people were living at Al-Hol. Since then, the number has declined with some countries repatriating their citizens. The camp’s residents are mostly children and women, including many wives or widows of IS members.
The camp’s residents are not technically prisoners and most have not been accused of crimes, but they have been held in de facto detention at the heavily guarded facility.
Forces of Syria’s central government captured the Al-Hol camp on Jan. 21 during a weekslong offensive against the SDF, which had been running the camp near the border with Iraq for a decade. A ceasefire deal has since ended the fighting.
Separately, thousands of accused IS militants who were held in detention centers in northeastern Syria have been transferred to Iraq to stand trial under an agreement with the US
The US military said Friday that it had completed the transfer of more than 5,700 adult male IS suspects from detention facilities in Syria to Iraqi custody.
Iraq’s National Center for International Judicial Cooperation said a total of 5,704 suspects from 61 countries who were affiliated with IS — most of them Syrian and Iraqi — were transferred from prisons in Syria. They are now being interrogated in Iraq.
