(MENAFN) A tragic road accident in western Afghanistan has claimed the lives of 79 people, including 17 children, most of whom were Afghan migrants recently deported from Iran, according to a Taliban interior ministry spokesperson.

The bus, traveling to Kabul, caught fire on Tuesday night after colliding with a truck and a motorcycle in Herat province. All passengers on the bus were killed, along with two individuals from the other vehicles, Ahmadullah Mottaqi, the Taliban’s director of information and culture in Herat, confirmed.

In recent months, Iran has intensified deportations of undocumented Afghan migrants who had fled conflict in their homeland.

"All the passengers were migrants who had boarded the vehicle in Islam Qala," said Mohammad Yousuf Saeedi, a spokesperson for the provincial governor, referring to a town near the Afghanistan–Iran border.

Herat police indicated that the accident was caused by the bus driver’s "excessive speed and negligence," according to reports. Traffic accidents are common in Afghanistan, where road conditions have been deteriorated by decades of conflict and enforcement of driving regulations is weak.

Since the 1970s, millions of Afghans have sought refuge in Iran and Pakistan, with major migration waves during the Soviet invasion in 1979 and following the Taliban’s return to power in 2021.

MENAFN21082025000045017281ID1109957548