PESHAWAR: Since the launch of a nationwide crackdown on undocumented immigrants on Nov 1, 2023, over 0.4 million undocumented Afghan nationals have returned to their country through the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Officials told Dawn that in November last year, thousands of illegal aliens left the country daily from different border crossings between KP and Afghanistan.

They added that the pace slowed down afterward but the voluntary repatriation never stopped

They said that all returning Afghan immigrants were documented.

On Oct 3, 2023, the then caretaker interior minister, Sarfaraz Bugti, announced the Nov 1 deadline for the voluntary return of illegal immigrants from the country and warned that all law- enforcement agencies would deport them all afterward.

UNHCR urges Pakistan to continue ‘protecting those seeking safety’

“We have set the Nov 1 deadline for illegal immigrants to willingly return to their respective countries and if they don’t comply, our law-enforcement agencies will expel them,” Mr Bugti said in a media briefing after a meeting of the apex committee on the National Action Plan at the Prime Minister’s House.

Soon after that deadline’s expiry on Oct 31, 2023, a crackdown was launched on Nov 1, 2023, and 7,300 refugees, including over 100 prisoners, were deported on Nov 1, via Pak-Afghan border crossing Torkham in Khyber tribal district.

Official documents reveal that since the repatriation began, a total of 421,112 illegal immigrants had left for Afghanistan via KP.

They also show that 413,826 left for Afghanistan voluntarily and 7,286 were deported through KP.

According to the documents, 400 illegal refugees left the country on Saturday, taking the overall tally of the immigrants, who crossed Torkham, to 414,430.

Authorities have so far repatriated 5,983 and 698 undocumented aliens to Afghanistan via Angoor Ada border crossing in South Waziristan tribal district and via Kharlachi border in North Waziristan tribal district respectively, and one to China via Sost border in Gilgit- Baltistan.

The documents also reveal that apart from illegal immigrants in KP, the provincial government received 1,440 illegal Afghan immigrants from other provinces, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan, and Islamabad.

Of them, 1,163 came in from Punjab, 194 from Islamabad, 44 from Sindh, 38 from Azad Jammu and Kashmir and one from Gilgit-Baltistan.

Besides registered Afghan refugees, including 1.3 million with Proof of Registration cards and 0.8 million with Afghan Citizen Cards, and those illegally living in Pakistan, around 0.7 million Afghans have arrived in Pakistan since Jan 2021, according to government officials.

They added that of those 0.7 million Afghans, around 100,000 had already left for resettlement in a third country.

When contacted, spokesperson for UNHCR Pakistan Qaisar Khan Afridi said the Pakistani government and people had a commendable, decades-long history of hosting Afghans, who fled conflict and violence in the past.

“Although every country has its own laws for regulating borders, we [UNHCR] urge Pakistan to continue protecting those seeking safety, as it has done for many decades,” he said.

Mr Afridi said as Afghanistan faced human rights challenges, especially for women and girls, a forced return would have serious implications for all seeking asylum in Pakistan and could face serious issues on repatriation.

Published in Dawn, November 3rd, 2024