ISLAMABAD: Over 200,000 Afghans have departed Pakistan since the government started a renewed deportation campaign in April, Islamabad‘s interior ministry informed AFP.
Over 135,000 Afghans departed Pakistan in April, the figure falling to 67,000 in May, and over 3,000 were repatriated in the first two days of June, the ministry said.
Millions of Afghans have streamed across to Pakistan in recent decades, escaping repeated wars. Hundreds of thousands have arrived since the Taliban regime returned in 2021.
However, more than one million Afghans have departed from Pakistan since Islamabad began its repatriation efforts in 2023, the ministry further stated.
The UN‘s International Organization for Migration on Tuesday also expressed alarm at an uptick in Afghan families being deported from Iran, tallying 15,675 crossing in May, more than double the figure of the preceding month.
The surge across both borders risks overburdening Afghanistan‘s already “fragile reception and reintegration systems“, IOM stated in a release.
Pakistan’s Ministry of Interior asked Afghan Citizen Card (ACC) holders, staying in Pakistan, to leave the country by March 31.
The Afghan nationals will be deported from April 1st, the ministry said in a statement.
“Illegal Foreigners Repatriation Program (IFRP) has been activated since November 1, 2023. Continuing the government‘s decision to repatriate illegal foreigners, national leadership has now decided to repatriate ACC holders as well,” the interior ministry stated in an official handout.
“All illegal foreigners and ACC holders are requested to depart voluntarily by March 31, 2025; after that, deportation will begin from April 1, 2025,” the statement further read.
The interior ministry added that enough time had already been provided for their honorable repatriation. “It is clarified that nobody will be mistreated during repatriation, and arrangements for food and medical care for repatriating foreigners have also been made.”
More than 8,00,000 Afghans who were residing in Pakistan illegally were repatriated to Afghanistan in the initial phase as Pakistan authorities began the campaign in November 2023.
It has been estimated that approximately 3 million Afghans remain in Pakistan.
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