3 million Afghans, many of them at risk for aiding U.S., face expulsion from Pakistan
Peshawar, Pakistan – Pakistan It plans to expel 3 million Afghans from the country this year, as a The deadline for them to leave voluntarily The validity of the capital and the surrounding areas ended on Monday.
It is the last stage of a The national campaign was launched in the country in October 2023 To expel foreigners who live in Pakistan illegally, most of them Afghans. The campaign was subjected to fire from the rights groups, the Taliban government and the United Nations.
The arrests and deportation were scheduled to start on Tuesday, but it was returned to April 10 because of the feast of Eid, which is filled with the end of Ramadan, according to government documents that the Associated Press witnessed.
About 845,000 Afghan has left Pakistan over the past 18 months, and numbers from the International Organization for Migration.
Pakistan says 3 million Afghans remain. Among these, 1,344,584 carries evidence of registration cards, while 807,402 has the cards of Afghan citizen. There are one million Afghans in the country illegally because they do not have papers.
Pakistan said it would make sure that the Afghans are not returning as soon as they were deported.
The authorities wanted to leave the holders of the Afghan citizens ’cards, Islamabad, and the city of Rawalbandi by March 31 and return to Afghanistan voluntarily or be deported.
Those who have evidence of registration can stay in Pakistan until June 30, while Afghans who want to resettle the third country must also leave Islamabad and Rawalbandi by March 31.
The authorities said they would work with foreign diplomatic missions to resettle the Afghans, and they also failed to deport them from Pakistan.
Tens of thousands of Afghans fled after the Taliban acquired in 2021. Resettlement was approved in the United States through a program that helps people at risk because of their work with the US government, the media, relief agencies and rights groups.
However, the president Donald Trump Temporarily Refugee programs In January and 20,000 Afghans Now in forgetting.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Refugees in Afghanistan, Abdel Motalb Hakkani, told Associated Press that Pakistan is making decisions arbitrarily, without involving the United Nations Refugee Agency or Taliban government.
“We have shared our problems with them, saying that the expulsion of the refugees from one side is not in their interest or to confront us,” Haqqani said. “It is not in their interest because their expulsion in this way is hate against Pakistan.
“For us, it is natural that the management of many Afghans is returning a challenge. We have asked to be deported through a mechanism and mutual understanding so that they can return with dignity.”
Two transit stations will be created in Khyber Bakhtongua Province in northwestern Pakistan to help deport. One will be in Nasser Bagh, an area on the outskirts of Bishhawar. The second will be in the border town of Landi Kotal, near the Torkham crossing.
It is not clear what will happen to children born in Pakistan for Afghan fathers, Afghan husbands who have different types of documents, families in which one of the parents is a Pakistani citizen and the other Afghan. But officials indicated that AP that social welfare staff will be ready to help in such cases.
Khan’s customer, 30, has a Afghan citizen card while his wife had evidence of registration. According to the Pakistani government’s policy, he must leave, but his wife can remain until June 30. Their two children have no documents, including passports or identity cards from any of the countries.
“I am from Baktia, but I was never there and I am not sure of my future,” he said.
Nazer Ahmed was born in the southwestern city of Kitta, and he was unprecedented in Afghanistan. His only relationship with the country was through his father, who died in Kuwait four years ago.
“How can we go there?” Ahmed, who is 21 years old, said.
