For decades, Pakistan has provided a haven for Afghan refugees escaping conflict and upheaval. Now, Afghans in Pakistan are being caught in tensions between Islamabad and Kabul over militant attacks.
Pakistan on Tuesday said that 1.73 million Afghan nationals living in the country without legal documentation have a “November 1 deadline” to leave voluntarily, with the government claiming that Afghan nationals were responsible for 14 suicide bombings in Pakistan this year.
The Pakistani government said that those who did not leave voluntarily would be deported, although it was unclear how they could track who left or find those who did not.
“If they do not go … then all the law enforcement agencies in the provinces or federal government will be utilized to deport them,” caretaker Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti told reporters in Islamabad.
He added that the government would confiscate the property and assets of undocumented migrants, along with setting up a tip line for members of the public to turn in people suspected of being undocumented Afghan migrants.
However, Pakistani analyst Zahid Hussain told DW that he was skeptical whether authorities could implement the deportations.
“Pakistan will not manage to locate them as they are spread all over the country,” he said. Hussain added that it would be difficult to pinpoint people for deportation as many have lived in Pakistan for a long time and have married Pakistani nationals.
“They may get some, but overall, it is difficult to differentiate,” he added. “It will be difficult to track them down as Islamabad has adopted the policy of allowing them for the past 40 years during the US presence in Afghanistan, and suddenly this policy shift will not work.”
Pakistan’s crackdown on Afghan migrants
Pakistan has previously detained Afghan refugees and sporadically deported them in small numbers.
However, this week’s decision to deport undocumented Afghans represents a significant escalation. The move comes after months of heightened tension between Afghanistan and Pakistan, which has spilled over into a broader crackdown on Afghan refugees.
Among other things, Pakistan seeks to pressure the Taliban government in Kabul to curb the activities of the militant network Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which operates in the Afghan-Pakistan border regions and has been tied to attacks on Pakistani security forces and suicide bombings in Pakistan.
Qamar Cheema, a security analyst in Pakistan, told DW that the Pakistani government is concerned that the TTP and so-called “Islamic State” (IS) have recruited Afghan nationals in their groups.
“The attack on the Chitral border region and recent incursions in Balochistan are not possible without the support of Afghan nationals. The Afghan Taliban wants TTP to have sanctuaries in Pakistan,” Cheema said.
The analyst added that Pakistani authorities are also trying to bolster security ahead of general elections, tentatively scheduled for January 2024.
However, civil society and refugee organizations say claiming Afghan refugees in Pakistan support militant attacks is mere propaganda.
The arrival of Afghan refugees in Pakistan has also been a growing concern for many locals. They see it as burdening the country’s economy, straining its national resources and changing the demographics of their regions.
Also this week, Pakistan said it would require a valid passport and visa for entry from Afghanistan, dispensing with the practice of granting special travel permits to people from tribes divided by the border.
Pakistan a primary host for Afghan refugees
Pakistan remains one of the world’s largest refugee host countries and has experienced multiple influxes of Afghan refugees. These span the period from the Soviet invasion in 1979 to the Taliban takeover in 2021, after which some 600,000 Afghan refugees fled to Pakistan.
However, the numbers of migrants and refugees vary depending on the source and can be hard to verify.
The UN’s human rights agency, the UNHCR, estimates a total of 3.7 million Afghans are living in Pakistan. Over 1.3 million are registered Afghan refugees. Another 840,000 hold an “Afghan Citizenship Card” (ACC). An estimated 775,000 are undocumented, and 600,000 are new arrivals since August 2021.
The opaque legal status of many Afghan migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers in Pakistan regarding documentation is also demonstrated by the difference in statistics provided by the UN and Pakistani authorities, who estimate 4.4 million Afghans are in Pakistan, among them 1.7 million “undocumented.
dpa
