Around 12,000 Afghans Imprisoned Abroad, Says Taliban Refugees Ministry

Approximately 12,000 Afghan citizens are currently imprisoned in Pakistan, Iran, and Türkiye, according to Abdul Motalib Haqqani, spokesperson for the Taliban’s Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation.

Speaking on Tuesday, 1 April, in an interview with Taliban-controlled Radio Television Afghanistan, Haqqani stated that more than 4,000 Afghan detainees were released from Iranian and Pakistani prisons over the past year.

He reported that between March 2024 and March 2025, thousands of Afghan nationals were repatriated from various countries. Of the estimated 12,000 still imprisoned abroad, around 8,000 are held in Iran, approximately 3,000 in Pakistan, and between 500 to 1,000 in Türkiye.

Haqqani noted that last year alone, 3,000 Afghan prisoners were released from Pakistan, while 1,350 were freed from detention centres in the Islamic Republic of Iran and returned to Afghanistan.

Officials from the Taliban’s Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation also claimed that they have made full preparations to facilitate the return of Afghan nationals from countries across the region.

Taliban authorities assert that since their return to power in August 2021, nearly five million Afghans have returned to the country, including both voluntary returnees and those deported.

While exact figures on Afghan detainees abroad remain difficult to verify, Iranian officials have previously confirmed the high number of Afghan nationals held in their prisons. In 2023, Askar Jalalian, Iran’s Deputy Minister of Justice, reported that around 8,000 foreign nationals were imprisoned in Iran—most of them Afghan citizens.

In August 2023, the Taliban announced that following negotiations with the Iranian government, 4,000 Afghan prisoners had been transferred from Iranian custody to Afghanistan.