The Diplomat
The Spanish Government delivered yesterday in Tehran more than 2.2 million vaccines against COVI9-19 to help the Islamic Republic of Iran to meet the needs of the numerous Afghan refugees hosted in this country.
As reported yesterday by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs through a press release, Iran hosts one of the largest Afghan refugee populations in the world, especially since the fall of President Ashraf Ghani’s government and the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan last August.
According to UNHCR, in October 2020, before the fall of the government, Iran was hosting 800,000 Afghans with refugee status, as well as another 2.25 million Afghans in an irregular situation. In addition, estimates indicate that the Afghan population in Iran has grown since August by several hundred thousand people. This humanitarian emergency has been coupled with the impact of COVID-19 in the Islamic Republic. According to WHO data, Iran had 6,204,512 cases and more than 131,847 deaths from the disease as of January 11.
Faced with this situation, Iran launched an appeal for help through the European Civil Protection Mechanism requesting six million vaccines against COVID-19 for the Afghan population living in the country. “Spain, in a show of solidarity with that country in the fight against the pandemic and in recognition of the important role it is playing in hosting Afghan refugees, has responded with the delivery today (yesterday) in Tehran of 2,204,000 AstraZeneca vaccines,” the ministry added. The delivery was made by the Spanish Ambassador, Ángel Losada, to the Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs of the Iranian Ministry of Health.
With this donation, according to the Foreign Ministry, “Spain fulfills the commitment to donate at least two million vaccines to humanitarian contexts”, made by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, on November 8, at the event commemorating the 70th anniversary of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.
Likewise, this donation, which is part of the so-called Team Europe and is co-financed by the EU’s European Civil Protection Mechanism, “is another sign of Spain’s firm commitment to international vaccine donations, having already donated more than 50 million doses and becoming the sixth largest donor in the world and the second largest in Latin America and the Caribbean,” he added. “Finally, this donation is also a clear sign of solidarity with the Afghan people,” it concluded.
