Pakistan is set to begin its push to force out 1.7 million migrants – many of them Afghans who fled the Taliban – despite criticism from human rights groups.
Thousands of Afghans living in Pakistan rushed to the border in trucks and buses ahead of the government’s Wednesday deadline for undocumented or unregistered foreign nationals to leave the country.
The anti-migrant policy was announced last month by Pakistan’s caretaker government, which has threatened to round-up, detain and deport those who do not leave voluntarily.
Islamabad has blamed Afghan migrants for a rise in armed attacks, mainly in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and southwestern Balochistan provinces bordering Afghanistan.
The government has also accused Kabul of turning a blind eye to Taliban-allied militants who find shelter in Afghanistan, from where they go back and forth across the two countries’ shared 1,600-mile border to stage attacks in Pakistan – an accusation the Taliban have denied.
However, the move to expel migrants has been strongly criticised by UN agencies and human rights groups, as well as the Taliban-led administration in Afghanistan.
Afghan families onboard a truck head toward a border crossing point in Torkham, Pakistan. Pic: AP
Pic: AP
The government says more than four million foreign nationals live in Pakistan – the vast majority of them Afghans who sought refuge over the last four decades.
Of those, as many as 600,000 to 800,000 migrated in or after the Taliban regained power in 2021, according to Pakistan’s interior ministry.
It claims there are around 1.7 million undocumented migrants in Pakistan – and all have been told to leave the country by 1 November.