Over 70 people have died, including over a dozen children, after a bus in Afghanistan crashed and caught fire, according to NBC News. This horrific accident involved a bus carrying migrants who were deported from Iran.
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Bus Crash Catches Fire And Leaves 75 Dead, Including 17 Children
75 passengers in total were killed, 17 of them being kids. Not a single person on that bus survived. The bus was traveling from Iran to the capital of Kabul on Tuesday, August 19.
Suddenly, a motorbike collided with the bus, as well as another vehicle. Two of the 75 victims were from the other vehicles, while two others were injured. The crash occurred near the Iranian border in the western province of Herat, per senior Afghan government official Ahmadullah Muttaqi.
“The car was carrying fuel and it caught fire after a head-on collision with the bus, fully loaded with passengers,” Muttaqi said. He then explained how the bus also caught on fire, and the majority of its passengers succumbed to burn injuries.
History Of Afghan Deportations
These refugees are among nearly 1.8 million Afghans who have been forced out of Iran within the past few months, the Associated Press reported. On top of that, 184,459 from Pakistan were sent back, as well as over 5,000 from Turkey since 2025 began.
“These Afghan refugees were returning home after spending a long time in Iran,” said Muttaqi. “But they could not reach their destination as their bus met with a tragic accident.”
Both Iran and Pakistan have been cracking down on migrants who they claim have been living there “illegally.” This has been going on since October 2023, resulting in mass deportations for nearly 2 years. According to the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation, around 6 million Afghan refugees remain overseas.
NBC News reported that Afghanistan is quite familiar with traffic accidents. Decades-long wars have left its roads in shambles, and officials don’t enforce traffic laws too well.
Over 2.2 million people have come back to Afghanistan from Iran and Pakistan since the start of 2025, according to U.N. human rights officials. This includes over 1.8 million from Iran and nearly 400,000 from Pakistan.