More than 20,000 Afghan migrants living in Pakistan rushed to the border with Afghanistan on Tuesday, just before Islamabad allowed their exit deadline to expire, according to Pakistani authorities.
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The Pakistani government has given undocumented immigrants living on its soil – primarily Afghans, whose number it estimates at 1.7 million – until Wednesday to leave on their own or face deportation. Kabul condemned a “cruel and barbaric” measure.
Afghans in an irregular situation then run the risk of being arrested, placed in detention centers and then deported to Afghanistan.
“Pakistan is the only country in the world that has welcomed refugees for so long,” Pakistani Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti said on Tuesday.
“Only people who are completely illegal will leave Pakistan,” he assured. Some of them decided not to wait and preferred to leave immediately.
“Thousands of Afghan refugees are waiting their turn in vehicles and trucks and their numbers continue to grow,” Irshad Mohmand, a senior Pakistani government official at the Torkham (northwest) border post, told AFP on Tuesday.
At least 18,000 people were queuing for several kilometers in Torkham, he said. According to local authorities, around 5,000 others are waiting at the Chaman border post in the southwestern province of Balochistan.
In total, more than 100,000 Afghan migrants have returned to Afghanistan since this plan was announced at the beginning of October.
Afraid to go home
Despite the influx, a government official in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where Torkham is located, estimated that the process on the Pakistani side would proceed relatively quickly.
This “doesn’t take much time because they don’t have passports or visas and they don’t have to go through immigration,” he stressed, speaking on condition of anonymity.
But Afghan authorities have To new arrivals, which takes much longer.
Millions of Afghans have flocked to Pakistan during the decade-long war – including at least 600,000 since the Taliban seized power in Kabul in August 2021 – making Pakistan one of the world’s most refugee-rich countries.
Many are afraid of returning to Afghanistan, where the Taliban government has imposed its strict interpretation of Islam, for example banning girls from access to education after primary school.
“We are not going back because my education would be brutally interrupted in Afghanistan,” said a 14-year-old Afghan girl in Peshawar whose family has no papers.
“Our father told us not to go even if he was arrested by the Pakistani authorities. Because we will have no life in Afghanistan,” she told AFP, which decided not to reveal her name for security reasons.
Several schools for Afghan children in Islamabad were closed on Tuesday because students feared they would be arrested and deported, teachers told AFP.
“Enough is enough”
Police also oversaw the demolition of hundreds of illegally built mud houses in the capital where Afghans lived in poverty.
“Enough is enough. Show us the way, we will find a vehicle and leave today. This humiliation is too great,” said Baaz Muhammad, 35, a Pakistan-born son of Afghan refugees, as he watched his house being bulldozed destroyed.
Police in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province said they had not made any arrests. But in Karachi (south) and Islamabad, Afghan refugees have reported raids for several days and say they have been victims of harassment or extortion.
Lawyers and activists denounced unprecedented repression and called on the government to give these migrants, some of whom have lived in Pakistan for decades or were even born there, more time to leave with dignity.
“The Pakistani government is using threats, abuse and detention to force undocumented Afghan asylum seekers to return to Afghanistan or face deportation,” Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday.
“The situation in Afghanistan remains dangerous for many of the refugees, and if they are expelled there will be significant security risks,” the human rights organization added.
The Pakistani government said it wanted to use the measure to “preserve the well-being and security” of the country, where anti-Afghan sentiment is rising amid the economic crisis and an increase in attacks on the border.