AROUND noon, it’s business as usual at Al-Asif Square. As women and children flock to the main bazaar to shop for Eid, the shopkeepers, while focusing on their customers, also look out for a police or Pakistan Rangers van.

As afternoon approaches, around 10 Afghan shopkeepers, most of them from northern Afghanistan, share their recent experiences in a community leader’s office inside Al-Asif Square. With renewed, though indecisive, efforts to repatriate the refugees back to Afghanistan, the police have recently been making arrests. An “estimated 100,000 of the Afghans returned to Afghanistan,” the shopkeepers say. Every day, a Pakistan Rangers mobile van visits the area to check for Proof of Registration (PoR) Cards to arrest those without them.

The cabinet’s decision on Friday to extend Afghan refugees’ stay in the country till March 2017 provides momentary relief. Although not specifically mentioned by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, it seems that repatriation of undocumented Afghans will nonetheless continue in the meantime.

Back in Afghanistan, as the Taliban continue to advance in the northeastern province — fuelling uncertainty over the refugees’ future back home — the shopkeepers sitting in their community leader’s office pick their words carefully as they speak one after another. Some of them glance at others, looking for any sign that they might have spoken too much. Almost all of them add — either in the beginning or at the end of their statements — that they love Pakistan, or that this is the only home they have ever known.

Sitting among the shopkeepers is Haji Mohammad Salik, 65, who chooses to speak in his native language, Farsi (Persian).

Speaking of the changing circumstances of Afghan refugees living in Pakistan since the Soviet war of the 1980s, he says: “I was greeted with a garland as I had arrived at the Torkham border. When I began my 20-day journey on foot, I was informed that I should instead head to Torkham as they were not telling people to go back.”

But circumstances keep changing for the one million (according to official estimates) Afghan refugees living in Pakistan. Their future continues to remain dependent on the inconstant relationship between Afghanistan and Pakistan, two nations sharing eight border crossings.

Eight kilometres from Al-Asif Square, Jhunjhar Goth became Haji’s first home soon after his coming to Pakistan. “It was not enough for our family of 10, but we ensured that we earned a living and didn’t depend on outside help. I received a lot of help from my Pashto- and Farsi-speaking compatriots. I bought my first shop a year after I moved here,” he says. Soon, more of his neighbours from the Qila-i-Zal district came to Karachi.

“Karachi was and is the hub for most of us,” says Sher Zaman Durrani, a teashop owner who came here in the 1990s. “We are the third generation of Afghans who found refuge in a city that wasn’t too demanding in the beginning,” says Zaman. “But as the decision has already been made there’s not much that I can do.”

Although beginning a new life here was easier, Zaman admits that he did not have any documents when he moved to Karachi. “All of my documents were in Farsi, which is not accepted here. It was after a census that was held in 2005 that I finally got my documents sorted and eventually received a PoR card,” he adds.

With the repatriation process in full swing, law enforcement authorities say that around 140,000 Afghans with no valid documents to support their stay recently went back home to Afghanistan. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees issued a similar statement for the 89,000 documented Afghan refugees who began returning home in May 2016.

Many in official circles believe that the repatriation process of Afghan refugees will take a far longer time than actually anticipated. Additionally, reports of alleged harassment also make matters a bit complicated, as officials believe this will give Kabul an excuse to “overlook Pakistan’s efforts in hosting the refugees and focus on cases of harassment”. Pakistan had earlier extended the deadline for documented Afghans till Dec 31, 2016. But back in the community leader’s office, the shopkeepers are worried about what seems to them a bigger issue than repatriation.

Refugees such as Zaman and Haji feel that while they can easily move and eke out a living in Afghanistan, they are concerned about their children’s ability to do the same. “They don’t speak Farsi or Pashto, and are referred to as Angraiz back in Afghanistan,” says Haji. Despite their worries, all of them smile at this.

“They don’t know any other life; or any other language. Although there are schools in the area where they are taught in Farsi, our children answer their teachers in Urdu. They’ll have to make serious adjustments once they return,” says Zaman.

Published in Dawn, September 11th, 2016