'There Is Nothing Here': Afghan Refugees Forced From Pakistan Struggle To Find Shelter

Trucks loaded with goods arrive as Afghan nationals head back to Afghanistan at the Torkham border crossing between Pakistan and Afghanistan on October 30.

Nasrallah has spent days in a crowded makeshift camp for Afghan refugees returning from neighboring Pakistan.

Like thousands of other returnees, he does not have proper shelter and sleeps out in the open with his family.

"We are just sitting in the dirt," Nasrallah told RFE/RL's Radio Azadi. "There is nothing here. There are no toilets, and the [Taliban] government has given us nothing."

Nasrallah is among the estimated 300,000 Afghans who have been forced to leave Pakistan in recent weeks.

Last month, Islamabad ordered 1.7 million undocumented Afghan refugees and migrants to leave the South Asian country or face arrest and expulsion after November 1.

The Taliban government and international aid agencies are struggling to cope as up to 10,000 Afghans cross the border each day, many with only the clothes on their backs.

The militants have established temporary camps for the returnees near the border and promised to assist them. But many returnees complain of a lack of tents, food, water, and sanitation.

WATCH: Afghans who have fled Pakistan to avoid arrest and deportation are living in makeshift camps on the Afghan side of the Torkham border crossing.

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'We Don't Have Toilets': Afghans Struggle After Crossing Border From Pakistan

The immediate need for many is to find housing ahead of the harsh winter months in Afghanistan, a mountainous country where temperatures can drop to as low as minus 35 degrees Celsius. Rising prices and a shortage of rentals, however, have put housing out of reach for many.

"We cannot find a house," Riyaz Ullah, an Afghan refugee who recently returned from Pakistan, told Radio Azadi. "Even if we find one, the rent is very high, and we cannot afford it."

"As the weather here gets cooler every day, I don't have any means to afford rent," Ullah added.

Sohail Ahmad, an Afghan refugee who returned to his native Nangarhar Province in eastern Afghanistan, says rents have skyrocketed amid the sudden influx of hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees. He says a house that usually costs around $40 per month to rent is going for triple that amount.

The cash-strapped Taliban government, which is under international sanctions, is struggling to absorb the returning refugees.

Afghan refugees settle in a camp near the Torkham border crossing in Afghanistan on November 3.

The Taliban has helped transport some of the returnees from Torkham and Chaman, the two main border crossings with Pakistan. The hard-line Islamists are also setting up additional temporary camps for the returnees, including in the southern province of Uruzgan.

"We are building this camp to temporarily accommodate those lacking housing until they can rent houses or find other long-term housing options," said Ali Ahmad Jan, the Taliban's governor of Uruzgan.

But returnees, many of whom have lost their possessions and livelihoods in Pakistan, say they need more assistance.

Yaser Khan recently returned to his native Kandahar Province in southern Afghanistan after living in the southern Pakistani port of Karachi for more than four decades. Now, he is struggling to put a roof over his family's head. "I am looking for a house but can't find anything I can afford," he told Radio Azadi.

Aid agencies have warned that the influx of hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees from Pakistan will aggravate the devastating humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, already the world's largest. They have called for more international funding to address the needs of the returnees.

The UN estimates that over 29 million Afghans -- out of a population of around 40 million -- need humanitarian assistance.

"The situation is now completely catastrophic in Afghanistan in relation to the [returnees] from Pakistan," Rebecca Roby, advocacy manager at the Norwegian Refugee Council, told Radio Azadi.

"The immediate needs are for temporary shelter, whether that's at the border in camps or supporting people traveling to other provincial capitals," she added.

Written by Abubakar Siddique based on reporting by Jawid Hasanzada and Sharifullah Sharafat of RFE/RL's Radio Azadi