dpa
Islamabad
Pakistani authorities have repatriated thousands of Afghan nationals as a fresh campaign to expel refugees gains momentum, despite a global outcry to spare those at risk of persecution under the Taliban regime.
The majority of the refugees were deported through the Torkham border crossing in the north-western province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Around 6,000 Afghans have been sent back since April 1, authorities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province said. “The campaign is gaining momentum and the crackdown against the illegal immigrants have been intensified,” said a government official who deals with the matter.
The refugees were also being deported at border crossings in south-western province of Balochistan. Pakistan started the mass deportation of Afghan refugees in 2023.
During a first phase undocumented Afghans were targeted. By the Interior Ministry’s count, around 900,000 Afghans have left Pakistan since October 2023. Last month, the government expanded the deportation programme with a plan to expel around 1 million Afghans registered in Pakistan as refugees under a bilateral agreement between the two countries.
Rights activist and lawyer Moniza Kakar put the number of Afghans deported since April 1 at “more than 10,000.” Kakar said that police and law enforcement agencies were arresting people indiscriminately.
Global rights groups and local activists have urged Pakistan to revisit the plan.
Millions of Afghans crossed into Pakistan first to flee the Russian invasion in 1979, then violence in the 1990s, and again in 2021 when the Taliban took power.
Many of those on Pakistan’s deportation list were born in Pakistan.
