Pakistan speeds up Afghans’ repatriation as deadline expires

PESHAWAR – Pakistan opened more border centres on Friday to speed up the return of tens of thousands of undocumented Afghans, an official said, two days after

a deadline for them to leave or face expulsion

expired and pleas to give the plan a rethink were ignored.

Pakistan has brushed off calls from the United Nations, rights groups and Western embassies to reconsider expelling more than a million of the four million Afghans in the country, saying they had been involved in Islamist militant attacks and crimes that undermined the security of the country.

Afghanistan denies the claims.

The UN refugee agency, the International Organisation for Migration and the UN Children’s Fund on Friday expressed concern for the safety of children and families affected by the expulsion, saying a humanitarian crisis was unfolding with winter on the way.

Mr Mullah Hassan Akhund, acting Prime Minister in Afghanistan’s Taliban-led administration, expressed reservations. “It is 100 per cent against all principles, come and talk face to face,” he said in a video-recorded statement.

Facilities at the main north-western border crossing of Torkham have been increased three times to cater for the rising number of returnees, said Mr Abdul Nasir Khan, deputy commissioner for Khyber district. “Everything is normal now as the returnees no longer need to wait in queues for hours,” he said.

Those arriving in Afghanistan complained of hardships.

“We spent three days on (the) border in Pakistan. We had (a) very bad situation,” said Mr Mohammad Ismael Rafi, 55, who said he lived for 22 years in the south-western Pakistani border town of Chaman where he had a retail business.   

“Thank God that we have arrived back to our country,” he said.

It took him six days to leave his home in Pakistan with his 16 family members and belongings to reach a makeshift tent village on the other side of the border.

Mr Rafi accused Pakistani officials of taking bribes, a charge Islamabad denies.

Afghan schoolboy Sarfraz, 16, who goes by one name, said he and his father had never visited Afghanistan and did not want to go there now. His grandfather migrated to Pakistan decades ago.

“Where should we go?” he asked in response to a Reuters query in north-western Peshawar.

“There is no work there. We’re poor people. We are being forced. We have to leave.”  

Transit camps

The Taliban administration in Afghanistan,

scrambling to cope with the sudden influx,

has set up temporary transit camps where food and medical assistance will be provided. Refugee groups have reported chaotic and desperate scenes at the camps.

Pakistan started rounding up foreigners, most of them Afghans, hours before the deadline.

Many of the migrants fled Afghanistan during the decades of armed conflict after the late 1970s, while the Islamist Taliban’s 

takeover after the withdrawal of United States-led coalition forces

in 2021 led to another exodus.

Mr Khan, the official, said 19,744 Afghans crossed the Torkham border on Thursday, 147,949 in total since the government announced the deadline.

More than 50,000 have left through the south-western Pakistani border crossing at Chaman, said Balochistan’s Minister for Information Jan Achakzai.

Pakistani authorities said they were open to delaying repatriation for people with health or other issues, including a seven-month-pregnant woman who was told on Friday to stay in Pakistan until she had given birth.

Islamabad says many of the undocumented Afghans have obtained national identity cards through illegitimate means. The government has been identifying and blocking all such suspected cards. REUTERS