TEHRAN – The Iranian Red Crescent Society has provided more than 115,000 Afghan refugees with Mine risk education.

Mine risk education is a preventive health and education initiative that seeks to save the lives and limbs of civilian adults and children who are either living with the threat of landmines or who are likely to face such a threat (for example, during and following the repatriation or return of displaced persons).

Its primary strategy is to instill safe behavior by raising awareness and educating both those at risk as well as those around them who can influence their behavior.

Over the first four months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21-Juy 22), mine risk education was provided to 115,692 Afghan refugees while they were leaving Iran via the Dogharon border, Mehr reported.

During the same period of last year, 126,179 Afghan nationals who were planning to return to their country, received mine risk education.

For over four decades, Iran has been hosting one of the largest and most protracted refugee situations in the world and has provided asylum to refugees, mostly from Afghanistan.

The recent fast-paced turn of events in Afghanistan has the potential to create additional population movements; internally displacing families and potentially driving them to neighboring countries to seek refuge.

Iran is home to over 800,000 registered refugees and some 2.6 million undocumented Afghans. Today, more than 500,000 Afghan children- including undocumented Afghans and those who have newly arrived in Iran are benefitting from Iran’s inclusive education policies, one of the most progressive in the world.

Despite the sanctions and economic pressures, Iran continues its comprehensive policy of providing services to refugees, and this is appreciable, UNHCR’s Officer in Charge, Inna Gladkova, said in November 2022.

The best solution and the most stable support system for refugees is that have access to schools and education just like Iranian nationals, she stated, IRNA reported.

Iran has taken effective and continuous measures to include all refugees, and the UNHCR also declares its readiness to fulfill its obligations, she noted.

In the provision of educational services, there are different aspects, she said, adding, school construction, equipping schools, providing teachers and human resources, and providing quality educational services are the main and important work done by the Ministry of Education.

There are many needs in the field of education, but in the last 10 years, the High Commissioner for Refugees has built only 95 schools in Iran, but the need is definitely more than this, she also said.

In June 2022, Maha Kashour, head of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Mashhad, said Iran’s efforts and activities in the last 40 years have been commendable to refugees, and in the past year, after the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, has reached its peak.

Iran has so far been able to provide decent services to refugees in the fields of health, livelihood, and vocational training in cooperation with UNHCR, she noted.

MG