World Vision Afghanistan (WVA) is headquartered in Herat. As we prepare our response to the growing migration crisis on the Afghanistan-Iran border, Mark Calder, WVA’s advocacy and communications director, has documented cases of Afghans, some forcibly returned, crossing into Herat province.

Travelling west from Herat city to the border with Iran at Islam Qala, swirling dust clouds obscure our view of the road. Appearing suddenly out of the ochre fog ahead, headlights, then a small car piled high with a family’s belongings. It speeds past us as quickly as it had materialised, leaving the conflict in Iran behind it with Afghanistan’s interior ahead, while to the north and south we snatch glimpses of goats being driven unpromisingly in search of pasture by children who call this exposed, land in-between, home.

The road here is part of Asian Highway 1, notionally connecting Tokyo with Istanbul, and unlike most roads in Afghanistan, the asphalt is unbroken and perfectly finished. Yet, its assertion of prosperity through connectedness yields to a different reality as we slow to a halt at the first of several checkpoints approaching the border. With concrete subduing the dust clouds a little, we can see more here, and a steady stream of people on the move: small groups of young men, some looking bewildered, some casually defiant, older men and women bent under vast bundles of belongings, weary families with crying children, a few groups of young women looking uncertainly to the road ahead. Others have their heads down, leaning into carts laden with plastic sacks or battered suitcases, or indeed bearing elderly, disabled or unwell relatives unable to walk. Others seem to have no possessions, or only a small purse or bag.

Eventually we are permitted near the border itself, Iranian flags 100 metres away, fluttering strenuously against the same dusty squall that assaults our eyes. But in such places, distance is not so much a measure of space as of the cost of movement: how much has been endured, how much has been lost.

“We have nothing and were forced to return”, said Abdul Wahid, the latest of half a million Afghans estimated by the UN to have returned to their homeland from Iran this year. “We don’t have shelter or cash and don’t know what to do.”

The authorities in Iran last year began to revoke bargeh sarshomari (census slips) that ensured two million Afghan nationals could work and access public services. Then deportations began. Peaking at around 10,000 individuals in a single day, numbers crossing at Islam Qala declined briefly with the bombardment of Iran that began a few days before our arrival. However, as we meet Abdul Wahid at the border, numbers have returned to several thousand per day.

“We were daily labourers in Iran,” Abdul Wahid tells us, with an air of disillusion. “They took all of our money. On the journey they took one million Toman [about 2 days’ wages] plus three million for transportation per person, no matter the individual’s age, one month and older.”

He goes on, “We rely on God first and then on the international community.”

While early returns were disproportionately young males, who make up the large part of traditional seasonal labour migration, the profile has changed increasingly to include women, families including female headed households, and unaccompanied children.

Nasiba is dressed smartly, somehow keeping the dust from spoiling her black abaya, but her face speaks of grief and worry as she tries to bring order to her headscarf in the unrelenting wind. “My husband and I went to Iran 15 years ago,” she tells us. “My son received treatment for three and half years and I was with him in the hospital during this time. We would be charged four times more than the price paid by an Iranian. We didn’t have insurance and there were no services for us in Iran. Whatever I had, I sold to provide the treatment, but my child died. We lost everything — even selling a store — for our child’s treatment. As a result, my husband faced trauma and became addicted.”

“Then they said that we should leave, and we were forced to return.”

Families and individuals crowd around the entrance to tents and temporary units seeking immediate treatment or support with basic supplies, while others ask for support to get SIM cards to contact family members still in Afghanistan – though some report having had their phones taken en route to the border. As we talk to some of them, and to officials, it’s clear that thousands arrive at the border daily with little but complex needs, and yet the capacity of existing support is around 500 people. We hear reports of young people returning with nothing being forced into near-servitude by unscrupulous businesses, in the hope that they will get a SIM card or phone or money for travel after serving their time.

“We need food, shelter, and cash to reach our province, Sar-e-Pul,” adds Abdul Wahid.

Inadequate infrastructure and public services, limited access to education and skills training, especially for women and girls, and few jobs or livelihoods opportunities, made worse in a predominantly land-based economy by climate change effects such as drought, floods and unseasonal severe weather. The international aid upon which Afghanistan relies has shrunk by 40% this year and 450 health centres have closed as a direct result, while poverty is the main reason 3.5 million children in Afghanistan are living with acute malnutrition.

Indeed, in many rural communities in western Afghanistan where World Vision works, it is noticeable that most adults of working age are women, as the majority of men are in Iran seeking to earn a basic living.

“Our concern is for our children, if we cannot feed them and cannot provide shelter for them,” Abdul Wahid laments. “I have a big family and because we didn’t have work here, I went to Iran out of need.”

Meanwhile the return of long-term Afghan residents of Iran, like Nasiba, will swell the demand for already inadequate assistance and creaking public services.

“Now I don’t have anything,” she tells us. “I’m the head of my family because my husband is sick. First of all, we need shelter where we can live. But I’m a tailor, I have a skill, yet I lack equipment, a place to work and facilities. But we aspire to practise our vocation through which we can feed ourselves and not rely on others.”

Amid the tales of recent misery and future uncertainty, we glimpse hope in such aspiration, and perhaps no more clearly than when speaking to children.

“The government had given us a deadline to leave, and we returned before the set deadline, so it means we came voluntarily”, 11-year-old Reihan asserts adamantly. “I have bad memories of people mistreating our countrymen and abusing them, but my friends gave me some things which I can never forget, and I’ll keep them in my memories.” So, what next? “I will enter Fifth Grade after summer, God willing. I dream of becoming a neurologist in the future.”

The sun is lowering in the sky as we leave Islam Qala, those walking alongside us drawing scarves and veils across their faces as the landscape bids them an ominous welcome home. The hot asphalt here may be smooth, but on the eastern horizon, only the swirl of dust through which lengthening shadows can be faintly discerned.