Afghans complain about health cards required by Iran at border

KABUL (TOLOnews): Afghans complained about the high price of “health cards” given by an Iranian-run Red Crescent office in Afghanistan for Afghans who cross from Nimroz into Iran. They said they should receive this card from Red Crescent for free.
The validity period of these cards is short, and are given to applicants at a high price, they say. “The card they give to us costs 400 afghani, it has to be free, people are not able to pay 400 afghani,” said Mena Gul, a Maidan Wardak resident.
“It has to be for free because the validity time of this card is short, it is only for 20 days, both countries governments’ have to pay attention to this,” said Rahmatullah, a Ghazni resident. “When you cross the border this card is not valid on the other side,” said Raz Mohammad, a Nimroz resident.
“They just look at the card at the border, they don’t register it with the system,” said Noor Ahmad, a trader.
Meanwhile, local officials of Nimroz said that they shared this problem with the Iranian delegation when they were in Nimroz and the Iranian delegation pledged to address the problem.
“We talked about the validity time of health cards to increase it to three months for our brothers who have passports and go to Iran,” said Habibullah, head of the Culture and Information in Nimroz. TOLOnews sought comments from officials of Iran’s Red Crescent in Nimroz, but they were not present for the conversation.