At least 71 people were killed Tuesday in western Afghanistan when a passenger bus carrying refugees recently deported from Iran collided with a truck and a motorcycle and caught fire, according to provincial officials.
The victims included 17 children. The majority of the dead were passengers on the bus, which was transporting Afghans who had just been forced out of neighboring Iran. Two people in the truck and two on the motorcycle also died in the crash, report agencies.
Police in Herat province attributed the accident to the bus driver’s “excessive speed and negligence.” The collision occurred in the Guzara district outside the city of Herat.
The bus was en route to the capital, Kabul, after picking up passengers at the Islam Qala border crossing, provincial official Mohammad Yousuf Saeedi told journalists. Taliban government chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid confirmed that the victims were among those deported from Iran.
The tragedy highlights the perilous journey faced by a massive wave of returnees. Since early June, nearly 450,000 Afghans have returned from Iran, according to the UNHCR. This follows a directive from Tehran imposing a July 6 deadline for undocumented refugees to leave. Just a day before the crash, Iranian Minister of Interior Eskandar Momeni announced that a further 800,000 people must depart by next March.
This surge compounds a severe humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. The nation, under hardline Taliban rule and crippled by poverty, is struggling to absorb over 1.4 million returnees from Pakistan and Iran this year alone. Iran’s policy potentially affects up to 4 million undocumented Afghans.
Traffic accidents are common in Afghanistan due to poor road conditions from decades of war, dangerous driving, and a lack of regulation. The incident is one of the deadliest recent road accidents in the country.