STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
The war is causing some people to flee Iran for Afghanistan. Think about that for a minute. People have fled Afghanistan for decades and some ended up in Iran. Now they regard Iran as dangerous enough that they have returned. People are also returning to Pakistan. Betsy Joles reports from Islamabad on their journeys.
(SOUNDBITE OF TRAFFIC HOOTING)
BETSY JOLES, BYLINE: In the Pakistani city of Quetta, returnees from Iran load onto Suzuki pickup trucks for transport to one of the city's mosques.
(CROSSTALK)
JOLES: They drop their luggage on the white marble floors in the mosque's courtyard and line up to register with local authorities. It took them around 10 hours to get here by road from the border with Iran, an unpredictable route through Pakistan's volatile Balochistan province. For religious seminary student Kausar Ali Jalbani (ph), earlier parts of the journey were dicey, too. He came from the Iranian city of Qom, one of the places that was hit by Israeli airstrikes last week. He says he heard explosions as he boarded a bus to leave.
KAUSAR ALI JALBANI: (Non-English language spoken).
JOLES: Pakistan's government says there are around 35,000 of its nationals residing in Iran and thousands have already returned home. People are also fleeing back across Iran's other border to Afghanistan. Twenty-three-year-old Afghan Rawzaddin Musazada (ph) left Iran's capital, Tehran, after his university there closed. He traveled by train, then rented a car to the Afghan city of Herat. And because of the internet cuts in Iran, he says no one could reach him from Afghanistan.
RAWZADDIN MUSAZADA: (Non-English language spoken).
JOLES: He wants to return to Tehran as soon as he gets the chance but worries whether he can afford it, even if fighting calms down. Prices of basic goods there had already started shooting up during the first days of war. And financial concerns are what push many Afghans over the border in the first place, says Arafat Jamal, Afghanistan representative for the U.N.'s refugee agency.
ARAFAT JAMAL: It's a level of instability on top of existing precarity.
JOLES: In 2025, Iran's government estimated there were 6 million Afghans residing there. Jamal says many who return to Afghanistan, whether by force or choice, stay for a short time then look for a pathway out again.
JAMAL: They clearly want to make a go of it in Afghanistan, but they really don't have any alternatives. And their families are expecting them to provide. So there's a lot of desperation like that.
JOLES: And with chaos across the border in Iran, that desperation might only grow.
With Fariba Akbari and Saadullah Akhter, for NPR News, I'm Betsy Joles in Islamabad.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHRISTIAN SCOTT ATUNDE ADJUAH'S "THE RECKONING") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.