Afghan officials have launched a mission to retrieve bodies of migrants from a river in the western province after reports came out that Iranian border guards were torturing and throwing Afghans in the river to prevent border entry.
A senior official from the presidential palace in Kabul suggested after initial assessment at least 70 Afghans were beaten and pushed in the river after trying to enter Iran from bordering Herat province.
This could trigger a diplomatic crisis between Iran and Afghanistan at a time when coronavirus has seen a mass departure of Afghan migrants from Iran after many tested positive for the virus in a country battling a large outbreak of the disease.
A majority of the positive cases in the nation were found among Afghans returning from Iran.