Police officers, along with workers from the National Database and Registration Authority, check the identity cards of Afghan citizens during a door-to-door search and verification drive for undocumented Afghan nationals, in an Afghan Camp on the outskirts of Karachi, Pakistan. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Pakistan said on July 11 that it was hosting at least 44,000 Afghan nationals approved and accepted for relocation by the Western nations to their countries due to fear of reprisal against them by the Taliban.

In 2021, Pakistan saw an exodus of Afghans who left their country after the NATO-backed Afghan government crumbled and the Taliban entered Kabul.

Addressing the weekly press briefing in Islamabad, Foreign Office spokeswoman Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said that at least 44,000 Afghans approved for relocation to Western nations are still in Pakistan.

She said that 25,000 Afghans were approved for relocation to the U.S., 9,000 Afghan nationals accepted for relocation by Australia, 6,000 by Canada, 3,000 by Germany, and over 1,000 by the U.K., but were still living in Pakistan.

Ms. Baloch said they were all yet to be relocated despite the lapse of almost three years since the NATO-backed Afghan government crumbled and the Taliban entered Kabul, triggering a painful exodus by Afghans who felt threatened by the new regime.

“We have urged them to expedite the approval and visa issuance process for these countries, for these individuals, so that they are relocated as early as possible,” Ms. Baloch said.

Initially, Pakistan allowed the fleeing Afghans to enter without any hindrance. However, relations with the interim Kabul government gradually deteriorated over the issue of Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants using Afghan soil to attack Pakistan.

Last year, Pakistan launched a crackdown on illegal aliens, mostly Afghans, and so far, over half a million are reported to have gone back to Afghanistan.

Last year in October, the caretaker government announced the decision to expel all illegal foreigners, which hit the Afghans living in Pakistan especially hard.

OPINION | The inhumane decision to expel Afghan refugees

The deportation of illegal Afghan refugees has been going on since the government’s ultimatum for them to leave Pakistan by November 1, last year.

Pakistan refused to relax the drive against illegal Afghans despite requests by Kabul, but a meeting between UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday raised hopes that Islamabad may reconsider the drive.

A statement attributed to Grandi also showed that Pakistan would stop expelling Afghans, but Baloch said that Pakistan was committed to implementing the Illegal Foreigners Repatriation Plan.

She said the first phase of this plan is near completion and alluded to the illegal foreigners, including Afghans repatriated to their home countries.

The spokesperson clarified that Pakistan had not given any understanding to the UNHCR for the plan’s suspension.

However, she pointed out that the government has approved a one-year extension of the validity of the Proof of Registration cards of Afghan refugees.

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Ms. Baloch also rejected any talks with the TTP by saying that the terrorist entity was involved in the killing of Pakistani and foreign citizens inside Pakistan.

She also said Pakistan respects Afghanistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

“We expect the Afghan authorities to uphold their sovereignty and take action against terrorist groups which have found sanctuaries inside Afghanistan and use their territory for terrorist attacks against Pakistan,” she said.

A worker from the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA), along with police officers, speaks to an Afghan citizen while checking identity cards, during a door-to-door search and verification drive for undocumented Afghan nationals, in an Afghan Camp on the outskirts of Karachi, Pakistan, November 21, 2023. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Pakistan announced on July 10 that it is extending the stay of 1.45 million Afghan refugees who legally reside in the country, a day after a visit by the U.N. refugee agency.

Afghan refugees with proper documentation will be able to remain in Pakistan until June 30, 2025, according to a statement issued by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s office. On Tuesday, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi urged Pakistani authorities to extend the validity of their registration cards — critical identity documents.

The previous stay extension issued by Pakstna’s government was up on June 30, causing wide uncertainty and fear they may get repatriated.

The decision came following a widely criticised anti-migrant crackdown that started last year targeting anyone without valid documentation regardless of nationality, according to Pakistani authorities, forcing an estimated 6,00,000 Afghans to return home. However, the clampdown has seemingly been put on hold, without authorities offering an explanation.

After wrapping up his three-day visit in which he met Afghan refugees and Pakistani officials, Mr. Grandi issued a statement, expressing his appreciation that the repatriation of undocumented persons has been suspended.

Also Read | The inhumane decision to expel Afghan refugees

There was no confirmation from Pakistan that the crackdown has in fact been halted.

U.N. agencies have decried the forced expulsion of Afghans from Pakistan, saying it could lead to severe human rights violations — including the separation of families and deportation of minors. Although Pakistan had been routinely deporting Afghans who came here without valid documents in recent years, the ongoing crackdown is unprecedented in scale

Pakistan has long hosted an estimated 1.7 million Afghans, most of whom fled during the 1979-1989 Soviet occupation of their country. More than half a million others escaped Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover in 2021, with thousands waiting for resettlement in the United States and elsewhere.

The undocumented Afghans are separate from refugees who are registered with the authorities and the UNHCR, though the crackdown has raised concerns among refugee communities as well.

Afghan refugees arrive in trucks to cross the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in Torkham on October 27, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Afghanistan’s Taliban government has urged Pakistan to give undocumented Afghans in the country more time to leave as pressure mounts at border posts swarmed by thousands of returnees fleeing the threat of deportation.

The Pakistani government has given 1.7 million Afghans it says are living illegally in the country until November 1 to leave voluntarily or be forcibly removed.

More than 130,000 people have left Pakistan since the order was given at the start of October, according to Pakistani border officials, creating bottlenecks on either side of crossing points.

Taliban authorities thanked Pakistan and other countries that have hosted millions of Afghans who fled during decades of conflict.

However, in a statement late Tuesday, they also “asked them to not forcibly deport Afghans with little notice but to give them time to prepare”.

Since taking power, the Taliban government has urged Afghans to return home but has also condemned Pakistan’s actions, saying nationals are being punished for tensions between Islamabad and Kabul.

Pakistan has said the deportations are to protect its “welfare and security” after a sharp rise in attacks, which the government blames on militants operating from Afghanistan.

The Taliban government statement again denied the claim, saying: “In countries where Afghans live, they have not threatened the security of those countries, nor have they been the cause of instability.”

The statement hit out at Pakistan for restrictions on what Afghans could bring across the border, including property such as livestock and cash.

Border officials on the Afghan side at the Torkham crossing in eastern Afghanistan said they were facing an “emergency situation” as they tried to keep up with waves of arrivals in their thousands.

An ad hoc settlement has sprung up near the border post, where people are becoming increasingly desperate, sleeping outdoors with limited access to food, water and medicines as they wait for registration.

The government has established a High Commission to address the issue and said two temporary camps would be set up in the area near Torkham.

Wednesday’s statement also urged wealthy Afghans to work with the High Commission to support returnees with transport, accommodation and shelter.

Officials have also said staff, technical reinforcements and trucks carrying mobile toilets, generators and water tankers were being deployed to Torkham.

A high-level government delegation visited Torkham on Tuesday, pledging support to returnees who had been “forcibly evicted by the Pakistani government against all the norms, good neighbourliness and humanitarian sentiments”.

Local residents and Afghan nationals during a protest rally in the southwestern border town of Chaman, Pakistan, on October 26, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AP

Pakistan is setting up deportation centres for migrants who are in the country illegally, including an estimated 1.7 million Afghans, officials said on October 26. Anyone found staying in the country without authorization from next Wednesday (November 1) will be arrested and sent to one of centres.

The move is the latest development in a Pakistani government crackdown to expel foreigners without registration or documents.

Jan Achakzai, a spokesman for the government in southwestern Pakistan’s Baluchistan province, said three deportation centres were being set up there. One will be in Quetta, the provincial capital.

Azam Khan, the caretaker Chief Minister for northwest Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, said the region also would have three deportation centres. More than 60,000 Afghans have returned home since the crackdown was announced, he said.

Migrants who are living in the country illegally should leave before a October 31 deadline to avoid arrest, he said.

Pakistan’s caretaker Interior Minister, Sarfraz Bugti, says the deadline will not be extended.

Mr. Bugti said during a news conference on October 26 that no migrants living in Pakistan without authorization illegally would be mistreated after their arrests. “They will not be manhandled,” he said, adding that they would get food and medical care until their deportations.

They are allowed to take a maximum of 50,000 Pakistani rupees ($180) out of the country, he said.

The Minister warned Pakistanis that action would be taken against them if they are found to be sheltering migrants who are in the country illegally after November 1.

The government has information about the areas where these migrants are hiding, Mr. Bugti said. Deporting them is a challenge for the state, but “nothing is impossible to achieve it,” he added.

The country hosts millions of Afghans who fled their country during the 1979-1989 Soviet occupation. The numbers swelled after the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021.

Pakistan says the 1.4 million Afghans who are registered as refugees need not worry. It denies targeting Afghans and says the focus is on people who are in the country illegally, regardless of their nationality.

In the southwest Pakistani border town of Chaman, tens of thousands of people protested the crackdown and new plans requiring the town’s residents to obtain a visa to cross the border into Afghanistan. They previously had special permits. The protesters included Afghans.

“We have relatives in Afghanistan. We also do business there; we have our shops there,” Allah Noor Achakzai, a 50-year old Pakistani, said

He said Afghans crossed the border into Pakistan everyday and returned home before the crossing closed, and that locals from both countries have gone back and forth on a daily basis for decades.

Last week, a group of former U.S. diplomats and representatives of resettlement organizations urged Pakistan not to deport Afghans awaiting U.S. visas under a program that relocates at-risk refugees fleeing Taliban rule.

The U.N. issued a similar appeal, saying the crackdown could lead to human rights violations, including the separation of families.

Afghans wait inside the passport office in Kabul, Afghanistan, on June 30, 2021. File
| Photo Credit: AP

A day after the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan slammed Pakistan’s decision to expel its undocumented nationals and termed it “unacceptable”, Islamabad on Thursday clarified that its ongoing operation against illegal immigrants was not targeted against people of any particular nationality.

On Tuesday, Pakistan’s caretaker government set November 1 as the deadline for thousands of undocumented immigrants, including Afghan nationals, to leave the country or risk imprisonment and deportation as it intensified its crackdown against those involved in militancy and smuggling.

Reacting to the development, the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan on Wednesday said Pakistan’s decision is “unacceptable”.

“The Pakistani side should reconsider its plan. Afghan refugees are not involved in Pakistan’s security problems. As long as they leave Pakistan voluntarily, that country should tolerate them,” Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said.

Replying to a question at the Foreign Office’s weekly briefing here, spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said the ongoing action envisages repatriation of individuals who have either remained in Pakistan beyond their visa or do not possess “valid” documents to stay in the country.

“Pakistan is within parameters of its sovereign domestic laws to take action in this context,” she said.

At the same time, she said, the ongoing operation has nothing to do with the 1.4 million Afghan refugees that Pakistan has been hosting for decades “despite its own constrained economic situation”.

Pakistan’s national policy on Afghan refugees “remains unchanged” and their safe and honourable repatriation is a “separate matter” on which Islamabad continues to engage with Afghanistan, the spokesperson said.

In response to another query, Baloch said Pakistan has very clearly articulated its concerns over the use of Afghan soil for terrorism. “Islamabad, while believing in diplomacy and dialogue, continues engagement with Kabul to fight the threat,” she said.

The Foreign Office also refuted media reports that Pakistan has closed transit trade with Afghanistan, saying that the trade continues but the country will not accept the misuse of existing trade facilities.

Pakistan interim interior minister Sarfaraz Bugti on Tuesday said that there are currently 1.73 million unregistered illegal Afghans living in the country.

Since January, 14 out of 24 suicide attacks in Pakistan were carried out by Afghan nationals, he said.

So far more than 700 Afghans have been arrested since early September in Karachi alone and hundreds more in other cities.