Afghanistan Peace Campaign 
Debt, drought and the struggle for survival in Helmand
About a month ago, Muhammad rented out his land to another farmer for five kharwar of wheat (around 2,200 kg). He sold part of the wheat to repay his debts and kept the rest for his family. Then he joined nine other men from his village and set out for Nimruz province, where a smuggler had promised to take them across the border into Iran. Muhammad had twin 17-year-old sons; he took one with him and left the other behind to look after the family. These days, the journey is riskier than it has ever been and there are no guarantees of finding work or even being able to stay in Iran, if you can get there. The government there is taking a hard stance against Afghans. They’ve been picking people up off the street, even going into their homes or places of work and deporting them. There are even reports of Iranian border guards shooting people as they try to cross into the country. But he felt like he didn’t have a choice but to take on the risk and go there to earn some money.
The journey to Nimruz
By the time they reached Zaranj, the capital of Nimruz, it was already dark. The men from Helmand had already arranged to meet the smuggler who’d take them across the next morning. So, they spent the night in a cheap hotel and, early the next morning, joined another group that was also heading to Iran. But just as they reached no-man’s land between the two countries, they were caught by the Emirate’s border patrols and forced to return to Zaranj. The police made them promise not to try to cross illegally again. This isn’t unusual; many people try multiple times over a week or more, before they can successfully cross into Iran. The smuggler told them it would be better to try the crossing at night, using the cover of darkness to avoid detection by the patrols. After discussing their options, they agreed to try again that evening.
Crossing into danger
It was around nine at night when the group set out again. As they climbed the border wall that had been built by the Iranian government, the Iranian border patrols spotted them and opened fire. We heard what happened from two of the men from Helmand who managed to escape and make their way home to their families – although they had no news of their companions. They said that in the chaos, some of the men escaped, others vanished – no one knew who made it across the border, who had been caught and who had been killed or injured.
Later, we found out that, for my friend Muhammad, the journey ended at the border. He was shot dead, along with another man from Zabul’s Khak-e Afghan district. Muhammad’s son and another man from Zabul were injured. The Iranian police handed the dead and wounded to the Afghan authorities, who took the living to the hospital and the dead to the morgue.
Bringing him home
Later at the hospital, the police asked Muhammad’s son for a phone number so they could contact the family. At first, when they called, the police didn’t tell us what had happened. They only asked us where Muhammad was. We told them that he’d gone to Iran. That was when the man on the phone gave us the devastating news: Muhammad had been shot dead by the Iranian police and his son lay wounded in hospital.
With a heavy heart, I went with some of Muhammad’s relatives to Zaranj to bring them both home. They kept his son in hospital for two more days before they let us take him back to the village to recover. We also brought Muhammad back to his family and buried him in the village. This is how my friend’s story ends. He took a dangerous gamble out of desperation and lost. But for his grieving wife and seven children, the journey is only just beginning. They now face a future marked by grief, poverty and uncertainty, without their beloved husband and father.
The family he left behind
Every migration story is a tale of survival and in places like Afghanistan, survival can be a deadly business. My friend’s story isn’t just about one man’s misfortune – it’s just one story among thousands about the desperate choices that many Afghan families have to make just to survive.
I tell his story because details matter – how he lost his livelihood, the land he leased to pay his debts, the one twin he left behind and the other that he took along, the hopes he had of finding a living and supporting his family and the death of a good man who only wanted his family to survive – they shine a light on the human cost of poverty and the impossible choices people have to make just to keep going.
Muhammad went to Iran looking for financial security and a future for his family, but he found death instead. His children now inherit not security, but hunger, poverty and grief in a world that offered their father no safe path forward.
Edited by Roxanna Shapour