Pakistan Is Planning To Deport More Than 1 Million Illegal Afghan Refugees

Afghan children pose for a photo at an Afghan refugee camp in Karachi on September 21.

Local media reported that the caretaker government in Islamabad approved the move on September 26 to repatriate over 1.1 million Afghan nationals living illegally in the country back to Afghanistan. However, no official confirmation has been released from the interim government. 

Afghans gather at a tea shop in the refugee camp in Karachi.

Afghans have poured into Pakistan in their millions during decades of successive wars, many living in aid camps with restricted access to education, health care and employment. 

An Afghan girl and her mother cross an open sewer at a refugee camp in Karachi.

Islamabad currently hosts about 1.4 million documented Afghan refugees. An equal number of undocumented Afghans are estimated to also be living in the country.

 

Afghan shopkeepers wait for customers at a shop at a refugee camp.

The government's repatriation announcement comes amid a crackdown on Afghan refugees. 

"The government has directed the police and other [law enforcement] organizations to arrest Afghans living illegally in Sindh and elsewhere in the country," Kamran Tissori, the governor of Sindh, told journalists on September 11.
 

 Afghan girls put on their scarfs at the refugee camp.

At least 700 Afghans have been arrested since early September in Karachi alone -- 10 times more than in August -- and hundreds more in the other cities, according to official police figures.

Police and politicians have said a recent roundup targets only those without legal status and is in response to rising crime and poor regulation of immigration, which is straining resources.

 

Afghan refugees board a bus from Karachi to Afghanistan

Afghan refugees in Pakistan complain of harassment and a lack of information and help in completing the paperwork needed for extending their stay in the country.

“After my Pakistani visa ended in July, I repeatedly applied to extend it but the government, unfortunately, has not processed it,” said one such refugee, who said his name was Ahmad. “The Pakistani government announcement has created huge pressure and most of us now face mental health problems,” he told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi.
 

Pakistani media reported on September 29 that Islamabad will soon announce a one-month deadline for all illegal foreign immigrants to leave the country.

Afghan-Pakistani relations have soured since the Taliban government seized power, with a sharp rise in militant attacks along Pakistan's border that Islamabad alleges are being planned on Afghan soil -- a charge Kabul denies.

A long-running border dispute has also seen key trade crossings closed for days.