QUETTA: Pakistan on Monday opened three new border crossings to expedite the deportation of Afghans living in the country illegally, officials said.
Nearly 300,000 Afghans have left Pakistan in recent weeks since authorities started arresting and deporting foreign nationals without papers after the Oct. 31 deadline for migrants without legal status to leave the country voluntarily.
The expulsions mostly affect Afghans, who make up the majority of foreigners in Pakistan. It has drawn criticism from the Taliban-led government in Afghanistan as well as human rights organizations.
The number of border crossings used to deport thousands of Afghans rose to five after the new facilities were opened in southwestern Baluchistan province, said Jan Achakzai, the caretaker provincial information minister.
Currently, about 15,000 Afghans have been crossing the border every day from Pakistan. Before the crackdown, around 300 people were crossing each day.
International aid agencies have documented chaotic and desperate scenes among Afghans who have returned from Pakistan.
Achakzai said police in Baluchistan in recent days had arrested more than 1,500 Afghans who had no valid documents.
A prominent Pakistani human rights lawyer, Moniza Kakar, said in the southern port city of Karachi that police had launched midnight raids on homes and detained Afghan families, including women and children.
The head of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Hina Jilani, said Pakistan lacks a comprehensive mechanism to handle refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants without papers, despite hosting Afghans for 40 years.
Violence against Pakistani security forces and civilians has surged since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan two years ago. Most attacks have been claimed by the Pakistani Taliban, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, a separate militant group but a close ally of the Afghan Taliban.
Pakistan often accuse the Taliban of harboring militants from groups like the TTP — allegations the Taliban deny — and said Afghans without permanent legal status are responsible for some of the attacks.
Pakistan has long hosted millions of Afghans, most of whom fled during the 1979-1989 Soviet occupation. More than half a million fled Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover.
Pakistan opens 3 new border crossings to deport Afghans in ongoing crackdown on migrants
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Pakistan opens 3 new border crossings to deport Afghans in ongoing crackdown on migrants
- Nearly 300,000 Afghans have left Pakistan in recent weeks since Pakistan widened crackdown against illegal immigrants
- Number of border crossings used to deport Afghans have now risen to five, says Balochistan government official
Return of millions of Afghans from Pakistan and Iran pushes Afghanistan to the brink, UN warns
- Afghan authorities provide care packages for those returning that include food aid, cash, a telephone SIM card and transportation
- But the returns have strained resources in a country struggling with a weak economy, severe drought and two devastating earthquakes
GENEVA: The return of millions of Afghans from neighboring Pakistan and Iran is pushing Afghanistan to the brink, the U.N. refugee agency said on Friday, describing an unprecedented scale of returns.
A total of 5.4 million people have returned to Afghanistan since October 2023, mostly from the two neighboring countries, UNHCR’s Afghanistan representative Arafat Jamal said, speaking to a U.N. briefing in Geneva via video link from Kabul, the Afghan capital.
“This is massive, and the speed and scale of these returns has pushed Afghanistan nearly to the brink,” Jamal said.
Pakistan launched a sweeping crackdown in Oct. 2023 to expel migrants without documents, urging those in the country to leave of their own accord to avoid arrest and forcible deportation and forcibly expelling others. Iran also began a crackdown on migrants at around the same time.
Since then, millions have streamed across the border into Afghanistan, including people who were born in Pakistan decades ago and had built lives and created businesses there.
Last year alone, 2.9 million people returned to Afghanistan, Jamal said, noting it was “the largest number of returns that we have witnessed to any single country.”
Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have criticized the mass expulsions.
Afghanistan was already struggling with a dire humanitarian situation and a poor human rights record, particularly relating to women and girls, and the massive influx of people amounting to 12% of the population has put the country under severe strain, Jamal said.
Already in just the month and a half since the start of this year, about 150,000 people had returned to Afghanistan, he added.
Afghan authorities provide care packages for those returning that include some food aid, cash, a telephone SIM card and transportation to parts of the country where they might have family. But the returns have strained resources in a country that was already struggling to cope with a weak economy and the effects of a severe drought and two devastating earthquakes.
In November, the U.N. development program said nine out of 10 families in areas of Afghanistan with high rates of return were resorting to what are known as negative coping mechanisms — either skipping meals, falling into debt or selling their belongings to survive.
“We are deeply concerned about the sustainability of these returns,” Jamal said, noting that while 5% of those who return say they will leave Afghanistan again, more than 10% say they know of someone who has already left.
“These decisions, I would underscore, to undertake dangerous journeys, are not driven by a lack of a desire to remain in the country, on the contrary, but the reality that many are unable to rebuild their viable and dignified lives,” he said.
