Pakistan to Expel 3 Million Afghan Refugees in 2024 Crackdown

Photo : AP

Pakistan has decided to send back three million Afghan people from the country this year. The government had given them time to leave on their own, but that time ended on Monday. Now, Pakistan will start sending them back. This plan started in October 2023 to remove all people living in Pakistan without legal papers. Most of these people are Afghans. Many groups, including the Taliban government and the United Nations, have said this is not fair.

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The government planned to start arresting and sending people back on April 1, but because of the Eid holidays, they delayed it until April 10. In the last 18 months, about 845,000 Afghans have already left Pakistan. The government says that three million Afghans are still in the country. About 1.3 million of them have special cards that let them stay, 807,000 have another type of Afghan card, but one million have no legal papers at all. Pakistan has said that once these Afghans leave, they will not be allowed to return.

The government told Afghan people with Afghan Citizen Cards to leave by March 31. If they did not leave, they will now be sent back by force. People who have Proof of Registration cards can stay until June 30. Afghans who are waiting to move to another country were also told to leave by March 31. Pakistan has said it will try to help some Afghans move to other countries, but if that does not happen, they will also be sent back to Afghanistan.

Many Afghans came to Pakistan after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 2021. Some of them were supposed to move to the United States under a program that helps people who worked for the U.S. government, media, and aid groups. But in January, the U.S. stopped this program, and now 20,000 Afghans do not know what will happen to them. The Taliban has asked Pakistan to let Afghan people return with respect and not push them out suddenly. The Taliban also said that Pakistan did not talk to the United Nations or the Afghan government before making this decision.

An Afghan refugee official said Pakistan is making this decision alone, without thinking about the problems it will cause. He said sending back so many people at once will create big problems for both Pakistan and Afghanistan. He asked Pakistan to send them back slowly and in a proper way.

Pakistan is setting up two places in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where Afghans will be kept before being sent back. One place is near Peshawar, and the other is close to the Torkham border, about seven kilometers away. It is still not clear what will happen to children born in Pakistan to Afghan parents or families where one parent is Pakistani and the other is Afghan. The government has said that some social workers will help with these cases.

Many Afghans in Pakistan are scared and do not know what will happen to them. Some have never been to Afghanistan and have no family there. Omaid Khan, a 30-year-old Afghan, has an Afghan Citizen Card, but his wife has a Proof of Registration card. This means he must leave, but she can stay until June 30. Their two small children have no papers at all. He does not know what to do because he has never lived in Afghanistan before. Nazir Ahmed, a 21-year-old Afghan born in Quetta, Pakistan, is also worried. His father was Afghan, but he died four years ago. Nazir has never been to Afghanistan and has no relatives there. He wonders how he will survive if he is sent to a country where he knows no one.

Pakistan’s decision to send back Afghans has left many people in trouble. Some do not have a home in Afghanistan, and others do not know how they will live there. The Taliban government has asked for a better way to do this, but Pakistan is moving forward with its plan. Many Afghans are waiting, unsure of what will happen next.