Thousands of Afghans leave as deadline for 'illegal immigrants' to leave Pakistan expires
Pakistan
More than 200,000 Afghan immigrants have so far voluntarily gone back to their countries.
ISLAMABAD (Dunya News) - Thousands of Afghan refugees and migrants in Pakistan rushed to the border to return home as deadline for undocumented immigrants, including Afghan refugees, to return to their countries on a voluntary basis expired on Tuesday.
The government has said it would begin arresting undocumented Afghans and taking them to new holding centres from today (Wednesday), from where they will be processed and forcibly returned to Afghanistan.
More than 200,000 Afghan immigrants have voluntarily gone back to their countries from Torkham border crossing in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Chaman crossing in Balochistan provinces this month.
Thousands of Afghan refugees are waiting for their turn in vehicles, lorries, and trucks, and the number continues to grow.
Pakistan has said the deportations are to protect the "welfare and security" of the country, where anti-Afghan sentiment has been growing amid prolonged economic hardship and a rise in cross-border militancy.
The government says more than four million foreigners live in Pakistan, a vast majority of them Afghan nationals who sought refuge over the last four decades after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s.
More recently, after the Taliban regained power in 2021, Pakistani officials say between 600,000 to 800,000 Afghans migrated to Pakistan. The Pakistani government claims nearly 1.7 million of those Afghans are undocumented.
