KARACHI, Pakistan, Oct 31 (Portal) – As the clock ticked down to the Nov. 1 deadline set by Pakistan for illegal migrants to leave the country, Muhammad Rahim boarded a bus from Karachi to the Afghan border.
“We would spend our whole lives here if they didn’t send us back,” said the 35-year-old Afghan citizen, who was born in Pakistan, married a Pakistani woman and raised his Pakistani-born children in the port city – but has no Pakistani identification papers .
According to the Taliban government in Afghanistan, around 60,000 Afghans returned from Pakistan between September 23rd and October 22nd. The country announced on October 4 that it would expel undocumented migrants who do not leave the country.
And recent daily returnee numbers are three times higher than normal, Taliban refugee ministry spokesman Abdul Mutaleb Haqqani told Portal on October 26.
Near Karachi’s Sohrab Goth district – home to one of Pakistan’s largest Afghan settlements – a bus company called Azizullah said it had set up additional services to handle the exodus. Queues formed nearby before rival bus routes left for Afghanistan.
“I used to drive one bus a week, now we have four to five a week,” said Azizullah, who – like all the Afghan migrants Portal interviewed – was referred to by just one name due to the sensitivity of The Reason.
Portal interviewed seven refugee families in Sohrab Goth, as well as four Taliban and Pakistani officials, community leaders, aid workers and lawyers who said the threat from Islamabad – and a subsequent rise in state-sponsored harassment – had torn families apart and even pressured Afghans for valid papers to leave .
Pakistan’s Interior Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. State Department spokeswoman Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said in a statement that the expulsion plan was in line with international norms and principles: “Our record over the last forty years in welcoming millions of our Afghan brothers and sisters speaks for itself.”
According to Islamabad, there are over 4 million Afghan migrants and refugees living in Pakistan, about 1.7 million of whom are undocumented. Afghans make up the bulk of the migrants – many came after the Taliban recaptured Afghanistan in 2021, but large numbers have been there since the 1979 Soviet invasion.
The expulsion threat came after suicide attacks this year in which the government said – without providing evidence – Afghans were involved. Islamabad also blamed them for smuggling and other militant attacks.
Financially strapped Pakistan, grappling with record inflation and a tough International Monetary Fund bailout program, also said illegal migrants had depleted its resources for decades.
Despite the challenges migrants face, Pakistan is the only home for many of them and a refuge from the economic hardship and extreme social conservatism that Afghanistan is grappling with, said Samar Abbas of the Sindh Human Rights Defenders Network, the Helping 200 Afghans stay.
INCREASING YIELDS
According to international organizations dealing with migration issues, an average of 300 people crossed the border into Afghanistan every day in early September. The data was provided on the condition that it not be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter. After Islamabad announced the November deadline, the number of crossings jumped to around 4,000, the organizations said.
These numbers are small compared to the number of people who will be affected in the coming days. The information minister of Balochistan province, which borders Afghanistan, told Portal he was opening three more border crossings.
A countdown to November 1st has been running on state television screens for weeks.
Federal Interior Minister Sarfaraz Bugti warned that law enforcement authorities will begin deporting “illegal immigrants who … have no justification” for being in Pakistan from Tuesday.
They would be held in “reception centers” and then deported, he told reporters, adding that women, children and the elderly would be treated “respectfully.” Portal could not determine how long they might be held at the centers.
Pakistani citizens who help illegal migrants obtain false identities or find employment will face legal action, Bugti warned.
“After November it will be very chaotic and there will be chaos in the Afghan refugee camps,” said Abbas, the advocate.
Fear and despair
The UN refugee agency UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said Pakistan’s plans pose “serious protection risks” for women and girls forced to leave. Restrictions in Afghanistan, particularly for female NGO workers, have resulted in shrinking employment opportunities for women there.
While Pakistan says it will not target Afghans with legal status, many with proper documentation are also being targeted, immigrant advocates say.
UNHCR data shows that 14,700 documented Afghans have left Pakistan as of October 18, 2023, more than double the 6,039 for all of last year.
The agency said in a statement that 78 percent of recently returned Afghans it spoke to cited fear of arrest in Pakistan as the reason for their departure.
There are more than 2.2 million Afghan migrants in Pakistan with a government-recognized document granting temporary residency rights.
About 1.4 million of them have PoR (proof of registration) cards that expired on June 30, making them vulnerable. Islamabad says it will not take action against people with invalid cards, but Abbas told Portal that police harassment had increased since the expulsion threat.
More than a dozen migrants Portal spoke to confirmed that claim, which was also repeated by Taliban diplomats in Pakistan.
Karachi East Police Commissioner Uzair Ahmed told Portal that while there may be “one or two” cases of harassment, they were not systemic in nature and the perpetrators were being investigated.
Many Afghans with legal status told Portal they felt forced to leave the country because they feared being separated from family members without documents.
Hajira, a 42-year-old widow from Sohrab Goth, told Portal she had the right to remain in Pakistan, as did two of her four sons. The other two don’t.
For fear of being separated from her children, she wants to leave with her sons and their families before the deadline.
Majida, a 31-year-old who was born in Pakistan, lives with her husband and six children in an apartment complex in Sohrab Goth, a run-down suburb whose narrow streets are filled with piles of trash.
She said her family had PoR cards but still faced harassment: a brother-in-law and a nephew were detained by local authorities for several hours before being released. Portal could not independently verify her account.
When Majida fell ill in early October, her husband refused to help her get medication at a nearby pharmacy for fear of imprisonment.
“We don’t have a home or a job (in Afghanistan),” she said. “Of course we consider Pakistan our home, we have lived here for so long.”
PRESSURE IN AFGHANISTAN
Back in Afghanistan, the influx of returning migrants and refugees has put pressure on already limited resources, strained by international sanctions on the banking sector and cuts in foreign aid following the Taliban takeover.
The Afghan Ministry of Refugees says it wants To returnees and then accommodate them in makeshift camps. The Taliban government said it would try to find jobs for returnees.
According to the World Bank, the unemployment rate has more than doubled from the period immediately before the Taliban came to power to June 2023. UN agencies say around two-thirds of the population needs humanitarian assistance.
“We had our own barbecue shop and meat shop here. We had…everything. We were guests here,” said 18-year-old Muhammad just before boarding Azizullah’s bus back to Afghanistan.
“You should see it this way: that the country is kicking out its guests.”
(This story has been refiled to correct the title “Speaker” in paragraph 8.)
Reporting by Ariba Shahid in Karachi and Charlotte Greenfield in Islamabad; Additional reporting by Mohammad Yunus Yawar in Kabul and Saleem Shahid in Quetta; Edited by Katerina Ang
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