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.