ISLAMABAD: Many Afghans refugees are returning to a homeland that is completely unknown to them, as neighboring Pakistan launched a large-scale crackdown on undocumented Afghan nationals.
Earlier this year, Pakistan’s interior ministry asked all “illegal foreigners” and holders of Afghan Citizen Cards (ACC) — a document launched in 2017 to grant temporary legal status to Afghan refugees — to leave the country before Mar. 31, warning they would otherwise be deported from April.
But for many of these refugees, this means uprooting from the only homes they’ve ever known.
Mir Ali was born in Murree, a mountain resort city in Pakistan’s Punjab region, where he spent his childhood and formative years. But he has no official Pakistani identity.
Standing at Pakistan’s Torkham border crossing point with Afghanistan, Mir Ali was reluctant to leave.
“I was not willing to come here (to the checkpoint) and leave but it was mandatory. My brother persuaded me to go back there (Afghanistan) and get the documents for my nationality. It will be a problem if I lose both nationalities,” the 23-year-old said, as he loaded his boxed-up-life into the back of a government-paid truck.
Over 63,000 undocumented or refugee Afghans had returned from Pakistan in the first 12 days of April, according to a joint UNHCR and International Organization for Migration (IOM) report published on Thursday.
It added that fear of arrest was the most common reason to return. Ali and his elder brother Asal Mir said they were leaving voluntarily.
“We were born in Pakistan, so why didn’t we get citizenship? So, maybe there is welfare in this (being expelled to Afghanistan) too,” said the younger brother.
The brothers were just two of hundreds of thousands of refugees who spent decades in Pakistan and were never granted citizenship, despite raising families and contributing to local communities.
Asal lived all four decades of his life in Pakistan and he said the way the government’s deportation order was issued affected him deeply.
With nowhere else to go, he could only now look toward Afghanistan for support — a country still reeling from economic collapse and political instability.
“The situation is worrying,” Asal said, uncertain about the future and his children’s education. “We’ll try to ensure they complete their education there (in Afghanistan).”
The brothers’ decision to relocate to Afghanistan comes as Pakistan resumed its deportation campaign targeting “illegal foreigners,” primarily Afghans, after a March 31 deadline passed, according to the UNHCR.
Islamabad said the expulsions were due to past militant attacks and crimes that it blamed on Afghan citizens, who form the largest portion of migrants in the country.
Afghanistan has rejected the accusations and has termed the repatriation as forced deportation.
Now with both brothers in Afghanistan, they can only remain hopeful despite an uncertain future.
“They have set up a program for us in Kabul and they will help us there,” Mir Ali said, switching to Pashto from Urdu language after arriving in Nangarhar. “We have nothing and ask for the government to provide us with land, houses and employment.”