KARACHI: Pakistan set a Nov. 1 deadline for all foreigners without legal documents, including more than a million Afghans, to leave the country or face forcible expulsion.
Here are key facts about Islamabad’s plan to deport hundreds of thousands back to its western neighbor Afghanistan:
- Pakistan announced the Wednesday deadline on Oct. 3, giving more than a million people about four weeks to move.
- The sudden expulsion threat came after suicide bombings this year that the government said involved Afghans, though without providing evidence. Islamabad has also blamed them for smuggling and other militant attacks as well as petty crimes.
- Islamabad says Afghan nationals were found to be involved in attacks against government and the army, including 14 of this year’s 24 suicide bombings.
- Pakistan is home to more than 4 million Afghan migrants and refugees, about 1.7 million of them undocumented, according to Islamabad, although many have lived in Pakistan for their entire lives.
- About 600,000 Afghans have crossed into Pakistan since the Taliban took over in 2021, joining a large number present since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and the ensuing civil wars.
- More than 60,000 Afghans returned to Afghanistan from Pakistan between Sept. 23 and Oct. 22, ahead of the deadline, with thousands more expected to have been on the move last week.
- Islamabad says deportation will be orderly, carried out in phases and start with those who have criminal records. Authorities have vowed raids in areas suspected of housing “undocumented foreigners” after Wednesday.
- Authorities have set up “holding centers” to process deportees before they return to Afghanistan. Reuters could not determine how long they might be detained in the centers.
FACTBOX: Pakistan’s plan to expel over 1 million Afghans living in the country illegally
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FACTBOX: Pakistan’s plan to expel over 1 million Afghans living in the country illegally
- Pakistan announced Nov. 1 deadline on Oct. 3, giving over a million people about four weeks to move
- More than 60,000 Afghans returned to Afghanistan from Pakistan between Sept. 23 and Oct. 22
UN says 270,000 Afghans have returned from Iran, Pakistan this year
- UNHCR says 110,000 Afghans returned from Iran while 160,000 returned from Pakistan since start of 2026
- Return numbers seem to have risen since Gulf war erupted on Feb. 28, says UNHCR official in Afghanistan
GENEVA: Some 270,000 Afghans have returned to their country from Pakistan and Iran so far this year, the UN said Tuesday, warning that the escalating Middle East war risked pushing the numbers higher.
UNHCR, the United Nations’ refugee agency, said that 110,000 Afghans had returned from Iran and another 160,000 had returned from Pakistan since the start of 2026.
And the numbers seem to have risen since the Middle East erupted on February 28, with the United States and Israel unleashing a barrage of strikes on Iran, and Tehran responding with drone and missile strikes on Israeli and US interests across the region.
Since then, there have been some 1,700 returns from Iran to Afghanistan each day, Arafat Jamal, UNHCR’s representative in Afghanistan, told reporters in Geneva.
Speaking from Islam Qala, on the Afghan-Iranian border, he said the situation there was “deceptively calm.”
“Returns are orderly but freighted with tension and apprehension,” he said, adding that with the hostilities elsewhere escalating, “I do fear there is more to come.”
“We are preparing for massive returns.”
He pointed out that Afghanistan was “facing the ramifications of what is happening with Iran,” while clashes have erupted along the Afghan border with Pakistan.
The new Middle East war, he warned, was “layering itself on top of an existing war on another frontier,” Jamal said.
UNHCR highlighted that the latest crises came after returns to Afghanistan had already been “exceptionally high” in recent years.
More than five million Afghans had returned from neighboring countries in the past two years, including 1.9 million returning from Iran last year alone.
Jamal warned that “many Afghan families are now facing cycles of displacement: first forced to flee Afghanistan, later displaced again inside Iran due to conflict, and now returning once more to Afghanistan.”
“And upon return in Afghanistan, the triply-displaced enter a spiral of precarity and uncertainty.”
Returns from Pakistan had meanwhile stabilized in recent weeks, as the main crossing point at Torkham remained closed due to the tensions there, Jamal said.
But he warned that “movements could increase sharply once the border reopens.”
UNHCR and the UN children’s agency UNICEF said Tuesday they were working to strengthen their capacity to operate at the borders and within Afghanistan.
But “given the scale of returns and the financial constraints facing humanitarian operations, additional support will be needed if arrivals increase,” UNHCR said, without specifying the amount needed.
