The country wants to remove all Afghan refugees from the country and they face expulsion in the near future, the Afghan embassy in Islamabad warned.
The embassy issued a strongly worded statement about Pakistan’s plans yesterday, saying Afghan nationals in Islamabad, and the nearby garrison city of Rawalpindi have been subjected to arrests, searches and orders from the police to leave the twin cities and relocate to other parts of Pakistan.
“This process of detaining Afghans, which began without any formal announcement, has not been officially communicated to the Embassy of Afghanistan in Islamabad through any formal correspondence,” it said.
“Ultimately, officials from Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that there is a definitive and final plan to deport all Afghan refugees not only from Islamabad and Rawalpindi but also from the entire country in the near future,” the embassy said.
There was no immediate comment from the Pakistani government on the Afghan statement.
The latest development comes more than two weeks after Pakistan’s government threatened to deport Afghan nationals living in the country illegally.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had approved a deadline of March 31 to deport those awaiting relocation to third countries unless their cases are swiftly processed by the governments who have agreed to take them after the Afghan Taliban seized power in 2021.
The Afghan embassy criticised “the short timeframe” given and “the unilateral nature of Pakistan’s decision”.
Besides hundreds of thousands of those living illegally in Pakistan, there are around 1.45 million Afghan nationals registered with UNHCR as refugees.
Pakistani Authorities say those who were registered earlier had their stay extended until June 2025, and will not be arrested or deported at least until the extension expires.
Earlier this month, Shafqat Ali Khan, the spokesman at Pakistan’s Foreign Affairs Ministry, had said: “This resettlement problem can’t be indefinite. So for us, the Afghans who are here, awaiting resettlement also has to be a transitory phase. This is not a permanent thing.”
He said Pakistan has been collaborating with Western countries to expedite the resettlement program and “will continue to do that.” — AP
