Threatening mass deportation – Dramatic situation on the Pakistan-Afghan border – News

  • As announced, Pakistan has started bringing foreigners without valid documents to collection camps for expulsion from November.
  • Fearing an impending mass deportation from Pakistan, more and more Afghan refugees are crowding the border crossings between the two countries.
  • The main access roads are full of trucks transporting families and their belongings to the crossings.

After the Islamist Taliban came to power two years ago, tens of thousands of Afghans fled to Pakistan. The authorities now want to deport them. But many no longer have a home.

Thousands of people are now crowding the northwestern Torkham border crossing between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The radical Islamic Taliban ruling Afghanistan said that transit camps had been set up to deal with the sudden influx. But aid organizations report catastrophic and chaotic conditions.

The backgrounds


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The background to this is the expiry of a deadline set by the Pakistani government a month ago, by which all refugees without a right of residence must leave Pakistan. This particularly affects refugees from Afghanistan. According to the government, around four million Afghan refugees live in Pakistan, around 1.7 million of them without permission. After the Taliban came to power in 2021 alone, around 600,000 Afghans fled to the neighboring country. However, many of them have been living in Pakistan since the 1970s and 1980s, when conflicts broke out in Afghanistan. Some have never been to Afghanistan.

According to Pakistani authorities, 128,000 Afghans have already left the country via the Torkham border crossing since the expulsion order was issued. More crossed the border at Chaman in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province. Pakistani authorities have denied media access to the Torkham border crossing since Tuesday.

Legend:

Thousands of refugees from Afghanistan are crowding the border crossings between the two countries after their expulsion from Pakistan.

Reuters/Fayaz Aziz

Aid agencies estimate that the number of people arriving in Torkham has increased from 300 per day to 9,000 to 10,000 per day since Pakistan’s announcement. The situation for people is becoming more and more dramatic. Aid teams on the Afghan side report chaotic and desperate scenes among those who have returned, the Norwegian Refugee Council, the Danish Refugee Council and the International Rescue Committee said in a joint statement. The federal government has also expressed concern about the development because the already difficult humanitarian situation in Afghanistan will worsen as winter approaches.

UN Secretary General António Guterres is concerned


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According to his spokesman, UN Secretary General António Guterres is worried about the threatened mass deportation of Afghan refugees from Pakistan. “We are very concerned about this forced relocation of people, many of whom are very likely refugees,” said Guterres’ spokesman. When asked whether Guterres had not asked the Pakistani government to withdraw the order to deport refugees without residence permits after the end of October, the spokesman said: “We would like them not to go through with it.” In many respects, Afghanistan is not prepared to take in the people again. He referred to the humanitarian and human rights situation in the country controlled by the Islamist Taliban.

The Pakistani government rejects criticism from the United Nations (UNO), Western states and human rights groups. According to the government in Islamabad, the background to the expulsion plans is numerous attacks in Pakistan. The government said 14 of the 24 suicide attacks this year were carried out by Afghans.

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