With the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and Taliban forces taking control of the country, people of Afghanistan, escaping from the poor conditions in the country and the oppression of the Taliban, have been become refugees traversing dangerous routes despite the high death risk.
The latest video recorded at the Turkey-Iran border reveals the situation they are in. Journalist Rusen Takva from the eastern province of Van (Wan) in Turkey, filmed hundreds of Afghan refugees walking in snowstorms in dangerous valleys with the risk of freezing to death at the Turkey-Iran border.
Those escaping from Afghanistan want to reach to Istanbul via Iran, Van, Tatvan, Diyarbakir, Ankara and then to Europe.
However many people die on the dangerous migration routes on that long and difficult journey.
On the first day of the new year, an Afghan refugee mother froze to death on the Turkish-Iranian border after giving some of her clothes to her children to protect them.
Turkey’s digging of ditches on its eastern border with Iran both in order to prevent refugees from crossing over and also as part of the ongoing military operations against Kurdish fighters is also another factor that has deepened the humanitarian crisis at the border.
Within the last month at least four people have died on the Turkish-Iranian border, either by freezing to death or by falling into ditches dug by the Turkish authorities and each year large numbers of bodies of refugees who freeze to death trying to reach Turkey are found at the Iranian border when spring comes and the snow begins to melt.