ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will start deporting around 1.4 million Afghan Proof of Registration (PoR) card holders from September 1, the Pakistani interior ministry said on Monday, as Islamabad gave a fresh call for Afghan nationals to leave the country.

Millions of Afghans have poured into Pakistan over the past several decades, fleeing successive wars, as well as hundreds of thousands who arrived after the return of the Taliban government in 2021.

A deportation drive first launched in 2023 was renewed in April when Pakistan’s government rescinded hundreds of thousands of residence permits for Afghans, threatening to arrest anyone who did not leave.

Islamabad this year said it wanted 3 million Afghans to leave the country, including 1.4 million people with PoR cards and some 800,000 with Afghan Citizen Cards (ACC).

“Afghan nationals holding Proof of Registration (PoR) cards shall be repatriated to Afghanistan as part of the ongoing implementation of the Illegal Foreigners Repatriation Plan (IFRP),” the interior ministry said in a notification issued on Monday.

“It has been decided that the voluntary return of PoR card holders shall commence forthwith, while the formal repatriation and deportation process will take effect from 1st September 2025.”

More than a million Afghans have left Pakistan since the expulsion drive first began in 2023, according to data from the UN refugee agency (UNHCR). Pakistan previously said those with PoR cards could stay until June 30, while the government has deported thousands of ACC holders.

“The repatriation of illegal foreign nationals, including Afghan Citizen Card (ACC) holders, will continue as per the earlier decision under the IFRP,” the interior ministry added.

In 2023, Islamabad said many of these Afghan refugees were found involved in militancy and crimes. Analysts say the expulsions are designed to pressure neighboring Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities to control militancy in the border regions.

Pakistan’s security forces are under enormous pressure along the border with Afghanistan, battling a growing insurgency by ethnic nationalists in Balochistan in the southwest and the Pakistani Taliban and its affiliates in the northwest.

Last year, Pakistan recorded the highest number of deaths from attacks in a decade and the government frequently accused Afghan nationals of taking part in assaults.

Qaiser Khan Afridi, a spokesperson for the UN refugee agency, this week urged Islamabad to adopt a “humane approach to ensure voluntary, gradual, and dignified return of Afghans” and praised Pakistan for hosting millions of Afghan refugees for more than 40 years, the AP news agency reported.

“We call on the government to halt the forcible return and ensure a gradual, voluntary and dignified repatriation process,” Afridi said.

“Such massive and hasty return could jeopardize the lives and freedom of Afghan refugees, while also risking instability not only in Afghanistan but across the region.”