Sitting on the edge of hell. Despatch from the Iran-Afghanistan border

As the world colludes with the Taliban on forced deportations, Afghans are trapped between brutality and betrayal

July 26, 2025 — It’s hot here at Islam Qala, on the Afghanistan-Iran border, where we wait in the scorching sun, without shelter, water or food for our children, or anywhere to go. Brutally forced out of one country that doesn’t want us, into another that offers only brutality, we have been robbed of what little we had and sit in the dirt with nothing.

Among those deported from Iran in recent weeks are women traveling alone, some carrying babies. They arrive in a land that does not want them, where they are not even regarded as human beings. Whether orphaned or widowed, without a man, they may as well not exist.

There is only one winner in all of this: the Taliban. A criminal gang of sanctioned terrorists peddling bogus religious dogma to justify the repression, joblessness and hunger driving people to flee, they have turned deportations into diplomatic currency. With each truckload of Afghans dumped back into their hands, the Taliban grow stronger as the rest of the world does their work for them. Each reluctant returnee is a gift-wrapped endorsement of their regime.