Herat (Afghanistan), Aug 20 — At least 70 people were killed and several injured when a bus carrying Afghan deportees from Iran collided with a truck and motorcycle before catching fire in Herat province, officials confirmed on Tuesday night.
“All the passengers were migrants who had boarded in Islam Qala, near the Iran border,” said provincial governor’s spokesman Mohammad Yousuf Saeedi. Taliban official Ahmadullah Mottaqi added that victims included everyone on the bus and two others from the other vehicles.
The tragedy comes amid Iran’s intensified deportations of undocumented Afghan migrants. Road accidents are frequent in Afghanistan due to poor infrastructure and weak enforcement of traffic laws after decades of war.
Millions of Afghans have fled to Iran and Pakistan since the 1979 Soviet invasion and, more recently, after the Taliban’s return to power in 2021. Rising deportations and discrimination in Iran have worsened Afghan migrants’ plight, with Tehran earlier setting a July deadline for undocumented Afghans to leave.