Ghani forms team to probe drowning of migrants

KABUL (Pajhwok): President Ashraf Ghani has ordered the constitution of a team to investigate claims regarding the drowning of Afghan migrants by Iranian border guards.

A statement from the Presidential Palace said: "Ghani, in a decree issued today, appointed a 10-member team to conduct a thorough investigation into reports about the deaths of several countrymen along the Iranian border.”

Ghani’s decree came hours after the administrative chief for the Gulran district of Herat, bordering Iran, said the bodies of 18 Afghans, who were forced into Harirud River earlier in the week, had been recovered so far.

Mohammad Hamid Tahmasbi would lead the investigation team, Ghani’s spokesman Sediq Sediqqi was quoted as saying by a Kabul-based private TV channel.

Scores of Afghan citizens trying to sneak into Iran in search of work were allegedly thrown into Harirud River. Some 25 men drowned or have since been missing.

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