Turkey, Afghan migrants kidnapped for money along the border with Iran: modest sums requested, never exceeding 500 euros

ISTANBUL (AsiaNews) – “The Afghans don’t know the area well and so they end up getting lost in small villages where they become easy prey for armed men”. Sami (the name is fictitious) is one of the many who fled from Kabul after the rise of the Taliban and deported from Ankara, who through his own testimony wants to denounce the growing phenomenon of kidnappings for ransom to which migrants are victims along the border between Turkey and Iran. They are small gangs, he explains to Middle East Eye (Mme) and ask families of origin for sums not exceeding 500 euros.

The escape from the Taliban of tens of thousands of desperate people. The kidnappings for ransom add to the abuses and violence suffered by Afghan refugees in Iran and Turkey, two countries on the route taken by tens of thousands of desperate people fleeing the Taliban. These groups, Sami continues, take advantage of the fact that the refugees walked for weeks through rugged and mountainous terrain in Iran before entering unfamiliar areas in Turkey. “They strike Afghan migrants – he explains – in their weak points, when they are tired, hungry from the long journey and feel lost. And even if they are 10 Afghans against only two or three criminals, they are too tired and weak to try to fight back”.

They shoot videos that testify to the phenomenon of kidnappings. While Ankara’s repatriation policy continues, with hundreds of refugees deported in this month of January alone – and another 5,000 in the coming days – videos relating to the phenomenon of kidnappings for ransom are starting to emerge. One video shows a group of Afghan men huddled facing a rock face, their hands tied behind their backs. One of them, gagged, is threatened with a combat knife with which his ear is severed. Another video shows refugees, shirtless despite the cold, shackled and kneeling, weeping and pleading as they are whipped with a belt.

The numerous gangs of criminals. Ali Hekmat, who has been helping refugees in Turkey for more than a decade, reports “countless” stories of criminal gangs abusing Afghans, particularly near the Iranian border. Most of them try to enter Turkey without documents, so there are no accurate statistics, but the messages of those who send ransom requests to their families are “constant”, after having fallen into the kidnapping network.

Many cases of arrests, abuses, violence, deaths. The issue of Afghan refugees, who travel a risky route through Iran and Turkey in an attempt to reach Europe, the United States or Australia, is still more than a year and a half after the rise of the Taliban in Kabul of deep concern. There are numerous cases of arrests, abuses and violence, deaths reported by NGOs and recorded in the daily news, such as that of the migrant who froze to death in an attempt to cross the Turkish border in early 2022. An emergency judged as a “humanitarian bomb” for Europe itself .

The double migratory flow: Afghan and Iranian. A source of AsiaNews he said at the time that “many people” died along the border in a “desperate attempt” to start a new life away from the Koranic students who have already imposed numerous rules inspired by sharia, Islamic law. The brutal repression of protests that have been going on for four months in the Islamic Republic over the death of 22-year-old Kurdish Mahsa Amini at the hands of the morality police because she did not wear the hijab further fueled the violence. The iron fist used by the ayatollahs has overshadowed the endless drama of migrants, often forgotten by international institutions and governments.