Afghan Refugees Forced to Leave Pakistan

Written by Allan Millward | November 5, 2023

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Back on October 3^rd of 2023, Pakistan’s interim government announced that it was giving illegal immigrants 28 days to leave the country. That deadline was reached on Wednesday, November 1^st, and all those that remain are now being forcefully deported. This policy was targeted at the 1.73 million Afghan refugees who have fled to Pakistan and were unable to attain formal refugee status. To justify this policy, the Pakistani government has asserted, without evidence, that 14 of the 24 suicide bombings that have plagued the country were carried out by individuals who held Afghan citizenship. Afghan refugees are consistently blamed for security failures in Pakistan despite the fact that around 600,000 of these refugees fled to the country to escape the Taliban’s return to power. These refugees may face persecution if they return and one, Abdul Rahman Hussain, who has returned claims that “every moment [his] feeling of fear is growing.” The returning refugee population also includes children and teenagers like 15-year-old Sapna and her nine-year-old brother who have never lived in Afghanistan and are now entering the country for the first time.

Approximately 4,000 people were repatriating daily in the lead-up to the deadline which has placed significant constraints on aid groups like the International Organization for Migration. The Taliban have announced the formation of a high commission to provide temporary camps and basic services to returning Afghans to help reintegrate them. Within Pakistan, refugees lived in fear of eviction and the police knocking on their doors in the lead-up to the deadline. The poor treatment of Afghan refugees in addition to their expulsion also represents the deteriorating relations between the Taliban and Pakistan’s government which blames the group for harboring the Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan (TTP) Pakistan’s version of the Taliban. This irritation with the Taliban is ironic given that Pakistan’s government helped the Taliban initially rise to power, harbored many of the Taliban in Pakistan during US occupation, and later congratulated the Taliban on their return to power which then Prime Minister Imran Khan called “breaking the chains of slavery.”