Roughly 6 million people were displaced from Afghanistan to neighboring countries amid the Soviet War in 1979. Nearly 40 years later, Tehran still shelters 1 million registered refugees, and another 2 million are thought to be living there, making it the world's fourth-largest refugee population. Sivanka Dhanapala, head of the office for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said,“The leadership demonstrated by the Iranian government has been exemplary in hosting refugees and keeping borders open” He went on to say, “In a world where you have multiple bad stories about hosting refugees, I think Iran is really a good news story,” he said. “It's a story that's not told often enough.”
The U.N. also hailed a 2015 directive from Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei that called on education administrators to allow all Afghan children, documented or not, to attend Iranian schools.
“We've also worked with the government on incorporating refugees into a government-sponsored health insurance scheme which is a ground-breaking development not just for Iran but globally for refugees,”
“I have no country to fight for; my country is the Earth, and I am a citizen of the World.” – Eugene V. Debs