Government’s deliberate crackdown makes the way forward for an estimated 1.7 million Afghans in Pakistan unsure.
Pakistan has ordered all undocumented immigrants, primarily almost 1.73 million Afghan nationals, to voluntarily leave the nation or face deportations.
“We have given them a November 1 deadline,” Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti stated on Tuesday amid claims by Islamabad that 14 of 24 suicide bombings within the nation this 12 months had been carried out by Afghan nationals.
Bugti stated an estimated 1.73 million Afghan nationals in Pakistan don’t have any authorized paperwork to keep, including {that a} whole of 4.4 million Afghan refugees stay in Pakistan.
“There are no two opinions that we are attacked from within Afghanistan and Afghan nationals are involved in attacks on us,” he stated. “We have evidence.”
Islamabad has acquired the most important inflow of Afghan refugees for the reason that Soviet invasion of their nation in 1979. About 1.3 million Afghans are registered refugees in Pakistan and 880,000 extra have authorized standing to stay, in accordance to the most recent United Nations figures.
“If they do not go, … then all the law enforcement agencies in the provinces or federal government will be utilised to deport them,” Bugti stated.
It was not instantly clear how Pakistani authorities may make sure the undocumented immigrants leave or how they may discover them to expel them.
Pakistan’s announcement, referred to as “harassment” by the Afghan embassy in Islamabad, marked a brand new low in its relations with Kabul, which have deteriorated since border clashes between the South Asian neighbours final month.
In a press release on X, the embassy stated greater than 1,000 Afghans have been detained previously two weeks – half of them regardless of having a authorized proper to be in Pakistan.
“Despite the repeated promises of the Pakistan authorities, the arrest and harassment of Afghan refugees by the police in Pakistan continues,” it stated.
Fazal Rehman, a 57-year-old Afghan fruit vendor within the northwestern metropolis of Peshawar, stated he arrived in Pakistan 30 years in the past and his kids have by no means been to Afghanistan.
He stated he had by no means felt the necessity to register with Pakistani authorities and now fears it’s too late to achieve this.
(*1*) he stated.
Leave Pakistan earlier than 1st November 2023 or face the results. Caretaker Interior Minister @PakSarfrazbugti introduced large crackdown towards unlawful immigrants particularly Afghan nationals residing in Pakistan with out passport and visa. There is rapid panic in cash market,…
— Hamid Mir حامد میر (@HamidMirPAK) October 3, 2023
Bugti stated from November 1, Pakistan would permit entry solely to Afghans with legitimate passports and visas.
For years, Afghans coming into Pakistan via land borders had been allowed to use their nationwide identification playing cards as a journey doc.
There is a large ready record in Afghanistan for nationals searching for to get passports, and acquiring a Pakistan visa can take months.
Bugti additionally warned of a crackdown on property and companies owned by the Afghans in Pakistan.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/3/pakistan-wants-undocumented-migrants-to-leave-by-november-1-or-get-deported?traffic_source=rss
