Iran’s police have arrested 110 illegal Afghan immigrants after busting an Afghan trafficking network in southern Iran over the past two days, an official said Monday.
An immigration official told the official Iranian news agency (IRNA) that three agents running the human-trafficking network were also arrested.
"The Afghans had jumped the eastern borders and were destined for heavily-populated provinces in Iran," he said.
He added that the Afghans would be repatriated. "Human-traffickers charge up to two million rials ($250) for every Afghan national," he said.
The great number of Afghans living in Iran is commonly cited as one of the reasons contributing to the high rate of unemployment and drug abuse in the country, said IRNA.
Some 1.4 million Afghans still remain in Iran, half of them illegal residents, according to official government reports.
An Iranian government official has said recently that about 500 Afghans manage to sneak cross the border to Iran daily through the Sistan Baluchistan border.
Iran and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reached an agreement in April for the voluntary repatriation of Afghan refugees – Albawaba.com
