550,000 Afghans leave Pakistan as crackdown enters its second day

Pakistan rejects ‘flawed’ US list of potential Afghan resettlers

Govt extends PoR card facility for Afghan nationals: sources

As many as 550,000 Afghans have left Pakistan so far as the grand countrywide police operation against the foreigners residing illegally in the country entered its second day on Thursday,

The government had given these foreigners the deadline of October 31 to leave the country voluntarily or else they would be evicted forcibly.

Special control rooms have been set up in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Balochistan where the police, Pakistan Customs, National Database Registration Authority (NADRA) and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) officials are gathering data of Afghan immigrants for their deportation.

Camps have been set up temporarily in Peshawar, Quetta, Chaman and Landi Kotal where these Afghans would be kept before their repatriation.

As per the government’s claim, facilities have been provided to the Afghans staying in these camps such as medical treatment and food.

Data of over 52,000 Afghans living in KP has been gathered since October 22.

Thousands of Afghan immigrants are crossing over into their country daily through Torkham and Chaman border crossings.

As many as 17, 118 Afghans left for their country yesterday on Wednesday on 270 vehicles.

Of these, 5062 were males, 4116 females and 7,940 were children.

According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the number of Afghan nationals leaving for their country has increased in recent months.

As per the statistics gathered by the organisation, there was a time when 4.8 million Afghanis were living in Pakistan; of whom 1.7 million were undocumented.

Giving further details, the organisation says that over 500,000 Afghan nationals, both documented as well as undocumented, had left for their country in 2016.

Furthermore, 600,000 to 800,000 Afghan nationals had taken refuge in Pakistan after the Taliban takeover in August 2015.

According to AFP, thousands joined a snaking queue that stretched seven kilometres at the busiest border point, with officials reporting at least 29,000 people crossed into Afghanistan the day before.

“Since November 1, the process of arrest and subsequent deportation of illegal foreigners has begun. However, the voluntary return of illegal foreigners will also continue and be encouraged,” the interior ministry said in a statement.

It said more than 140,000 people have left Pakistan since the start of October when the order was issued by an unelected caretaker government ahead of elections due in January.

Forty-nine holding centres, some capable of holding several thousand people, opened across the country on Wednesday to process and deport Afghans, state media said.

“My heart doesn’t really want to return to Afghanistan but I have no other choice,” said 32-year-old Irfanullah, as he waited to be deported. “The police were harassing me… they used to disrespect all the men and women by entering our houses. That’s why we are returning, to avoid further humiliation.”

Millions of Afghans have poured into Pakistan in recent decades, fleeing a series of violent conflicts, including an estimated 600,000 since the Taliban government seized power in August 2021 and imposed its harsh interpretation of Islamic law.

Pakistan has said the deportations are to protect its “welfare and security” after a sharp rise in attacks, which the government blames on militants operating from Afghanistan.

– ‘Emergency situation’ –

Authorities on the Afghan side of the border have been overwhelmed by the scale of the exodus as they attempt to process those returning — some of whom are setting foot in Afghanistan for the first time in their lives.

Samiullah Samoon, who leads immigration registration at Torkham, said the crossing is facing “an emergency situation”.

After fleeing to Afghanistan, 35-year-old Benafsha, four months pregnant with her seventh child, was waiting to be processed before moving on to her province of origin, Kunduz, with her family.

“In Kunduz, we don’t have land, or a home, or work,” said the woman, who was never documented in Pakistan despite living there almost all her life. “We don’t have anything there.”

The Taliban government has urged Pakistan to give undocumented Afghans in the country more time to leave as pressure mounts at border posts.

Earlier,

Pakistan has started rounding up and deporting undocumented foreigners — including 1.7 million Afghan nationals — following a one-month deadline for voluntary departure that expired Wednesday, and also rejected an American list of potential Afghan resettlers declaring it as “flawed”.

Authorities have reported that nearly 250,000 Afghans have returned to their home country voluntarily in the run-up to the November 1 deadline to avoid being arrested and forcibly expelled.

The United Nations and Pakistani officials say those facing deportation include more than 600,000 people who fled Afghanistan after the Islamist Taliban returned to power in August 2021, when the United States and NATO withdrew their troops from the country.

According to Voice of America (VOA), US officials say they are working closely with Pakistani counterparts to ensure the protection of at least 25,000 Afghans who could be eligible for relocation to the United States under a special immigration programme for their services during the two-decade-long presence of American forces in Afghanistan.

But a senior Pakistani official has said that Islamabad had rejected the list because of significant discrepancies. “The list of 25,000 Afghans was shared with Pakistan just days before the deportation deadline was to expire. We examined it thoroughly but found it flawed and incomplete,” said the official on Wednesday, who spoke on condition of anonymity for not being authorized to discuss the subject publicly.

The official added that the US side eventually withdrew the list in response to Pakistan’s objections and promised to resubmit it after removing the flaws. Washington did not comment immediately on Pakistani assertions.

On Tuesday, a US official said that facilitating “the safe and efficient” resettlement of Pakistan-based eligible Afghan refugees and asylum seekers is a priority for the US administration. “To help protect vulnerable individuals, we have shared a list with the government of Pakistan of more than 25,000 Afghan individuals in the US resettlement and relocation pipelines,” said the US official, who spoke anonymously to discuss the policy. “We are in the process of sending letters to those individuals that they can share with local authorities to help identify them as individuals in the US pipeline.”

Dozens of Afghan nationals jailed for “minor crimes” also were released from a prison near Islamabad and were transported along with others to the border for repatriation Wednesday.

“This action is a testament to Pakistan’s determination to repatriate any individuals residing in the country without proper documentation,” Interior Minister Sarfaraz Bugti said on social media platform X.

Pakistan has been praised globally for hosting millions of Afghan refugees who fled the decadelong Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and ensuing factional fighting in the 1990s. Currently, more than 4 million Afghans reside in the country, including 1.4 million legally registered refugees and hundreds of thousands of documented economic migrants.

Pakistani authorities have stated that Afghans living legally in the country are not subject to the crackdown.

Islamabad defends its policy regarding foreigners without legal status, saying Afghan nationals have carried out several suicide bombings in Pakistan amid a recent spike in deadly attacks in the country being orchestrated by Taliban-allied militants from Afghan soil.

The violence has led to anti-Afghan sentiment and calls for forcing the refugee community out of the country.

The United States has called on Pakistan to let through Afghans who are seeking asylum.

“We strongly encourage Afghanistan’s neighbours including Pakistan to allow entry for Afghans seeking international protection and to coordinate with international humanitarian organisations to provide humanitarian assistance,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said on Wednesday.

While,

The caretaker government has decided to extend the proof of registration (PoR) cards – an identity document for Afghan refugees – till December 31, sources within the government said on Thursday.

They added that such Afghan nationals would also be stopped at transit points after the deadline.

The development comes as the government’s crackdown on illegal immigrants gets under way. More than 129,000 Afghan nationals have fled Pakistan in the month since the government set the November 1 deadline.

Sources said that Afghan-origin card holders and those having correct visas on Afghan passports would not be disturbed.

The caretaker government has set up holding centres at borders to facilitate the returning immigrants.

About 600,000 Afghans have crossed into neighbouring Pakistan since the Taliban took over in 2021, joining a large number there since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and the ensuing civil wars.

Islamabad says deportation will be orderly, carried out in phases and start with those who have criminal records.