Decision to deport Afghan residents put on hold till December 31
Karachi. The Pakistan government on Saturday put on hold till December 31 its decision to deport even legal Afghan refugee residents whose legal residence documents expired this year.
The decision came when Jan Achakzai, acting information minister of Pakistan’s Balochistan province, said on Friday that the government has also decided to send back to their country those Afghans who have been living without legal documents for years after their documents expired. Were living in the country.
“There has also been a pause till December 31 to deport those Afghan refugees whose registration proofs or POR cards had expired this year,” an official announcement said.
The deportation of illegal Afghan refugees living in Pakistan is continuing after the government gave an ultimatum to all unregistered foreign nationals to leave Pakistan by November 1 after which action will be taken against them as per law. Achakzai said the illegal immigrants, mostly Afghans, The operation to deport is continuing successfully and so far about 250,000 Afghans have voluntarily returned home, while another 80,000 have been deported through the Chaman and Torkham borders.
The minister said, “The decision to deport even those with legal documents has been taken as a sovereign state because Afghan soil is being used by terrorists to target Pakistan and its security forces and people. “
Achakzai said many Afghans were involved in terrorism and criminal activities in Pakistan and added that six terrorists were recently killed in Zhob Balochistan and all of them were Afghan nationals.
He claimed, “Incidents of terrorism have increased in Pakistan since the new (Taliban) government took power in Afghanistan two years ago.” There is increasing pressure from the UN Refugee Commission and other countries on the Pakistani government not to deport Afghans who fled Taliban rule in 2021 or fled conflict and persecution at home since the Russian invasion and whose Had legal documents.
Pakistan claims that about 17 lakh Afghans are living illegally in the country.
Akahzai said the Balochistan government has so far blocked around 100,000 fake computerized national identity cards (CNICs) of Afghan citizens and another 20,000 fake CNICs have reportedly been blocked in Sindh.
Proof of Registration or POR cards for legal Afghan refugees expired on June 30, 2023. The extension of validity of the PoR card was rejected by Islamabad without any explanation for the subsequent delay.
Now Afghan refugees will be able to extend their POR card.
As Pakistan continues the deportation of illegal Afghans, international human rights bodies have criticized Pakistan’s move.
He has said that Afghans fleeing Pakistan to avoid arrest and deportation are sleeping in the open without proper shelter, food, drinking water and toilets after crossing the border towards their motherland.
Arshad Malik, country director of Save the Children, said many of the returnees are coming back without education documents, making it difficult for them to continue their education, as well as lacking the local Afghan languages of Dari and Pashto. Because he has studied Urdu and English. in Pakistan.
They warned that poverty was likely to increase their involvement in child labor in Afghanistan as well as trafficking as most of the returning families were among the poorest migrants in Pakistan. Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) chairperson Hina Jilani said in a letter addressed to UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi that Pakistan’s decision to expel Afghans “could create a humanitarian crisis”.
Similarly, the National Commission on the Status of Women wrote to Interior Minister Sarfaraz Bugti, saying that there were about 25 lakh widows in Afghanistan, some of whom had come to Pakistan in search of livelihood. “These women are journalists, doctors, software engineers and others who remain unidentified due to various circumstances beyond their control,” it said.
