Forgotten Refugees; When Begging Becomes the Only Option
- Ariahn Raya
- Sep 2
- 3 min read
After the mass wave of forced deportations of Afghan refugees from Iran, the streets of Herat now witness sad faces, where hunger, homelessness, and helplessness have driven them to beg; in a country that itself suffers from poverty, unemployment, and chronic economic crises.
According to statistics, in the past six months more than one million Afghan refugees have been forcibly deported from Iran. Many of these families, without shelter, without financial support, and without a plan for a new beginning, are now stretching out their hands for help in the streets.
Zan News has spoken with three families who were recently deported from Iran; bitter stories of poverty, homelessness, and shattered hopes.
Sohila, a 17-year-old girl, begs at night in the streets of Herat with her mother and two younger brothers. They had lived in Tehran for six years, where the mother and daughter worked as domestic helpers in Iranian homes.
Now, however, they have been deported and left helpless in a city where they know no one and where there is no work for them.
With eyes full of tears, Sohila told Zan News: “We lived in Tehran for six years. My mother and I cleaned houses. When we were expelled, we fell into poverty. Here there is no work for women. We are forced to beg. For three nights we have not eaten anything. We have no one in Afghanistan.”
Sohila’s mother, Zarghona, could not hide her tears. With a voice choked from crying, she said: “My husband was killed in the war. He was a soldier in the army. Later we went to Iran illegally. Now we have returned but we have no solution. We have no one here and no money to return to Mazar.”
Shabana, another middle-aged woman, has turned to begging on the roadside with her husband and teenage daughter. She said none of them has found work and for that reason, out of poverty and desperation, they have been begging for ten days to provide bread for the night.
She told Zan News about her life and hardships: “My husband goes out every day looking for work, but nothing is found. I also went to people’s houses for work, they said there is no work. We have been begging for ten days. The government only gave 6,000 Afghanis at the border, it was not even enough for our travel fare.”
“I want dignified work, not pity.”
Lailma sits with her two small children around midnight on the 64-meter road in Herat. She said she is without a guardian and that her husband, who was addicted, disappeared after the deportation.
She added that now the only way left to feed her children is begging: “I have no one here. There is no work. For the sake of my children’s stomachs I sit here. My request is that the government find me dignified work, I do not want pity.”
The End of an Exile, the Beginning of a Tragedy
The return of Afghan refugees from neighboring countries such as Iran, if carried out without planning, brings nothing but poverty and displacement. Families who had fled abroad with countless hopes and fears of war, poverty, and insecurity, now return with empty hands and an uncertain future. With no job opportunities, no shelter, and no support services, these refugees have not only been rejected in exile but also forgotten in their homeland.
