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Malay Mail
a day ago
- Politics
- Malay Mail
Homeland insecurity: Expelled Afghans risk reentry to Pakistan to escape Taliban rule
PESHAWAR (Pakistan), June 19 — Pakistan says it has expelled more than a million Afghans in the past two years, yet many have quickly attempted to return — preferring to take their chances dodging the law than struggle for existence in a homeland some had never even seen before. 'Going back there would be sentencing my family to death,' said Hayatullah, a 46-year-old Afghan deported via the Torkham border crossing in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in early 2024. Since April and a renewed deportation drive, some 200,000 Afghans have spilled over the two main border crossings from Pakistan, entering on trucks loaded with hastily packed belongings. But they carry little hope of starting over in the impoverished country, where girls are banned from school after primary level. Hayatullah, a pseudonym, returned to Pakistan a month after being deported, travelling around 800 kilometres south to the Chaman border crossing in Balochistan, because for him, life in Afghanistan 'had come to a standstill'. He paid a bribe to cross the Chaman frontier, 'like all the day labourers who regularly travel across the border to work on the other side'. His wife and three children — including daughters, aged 16 and 18, who would be denied education in Afghanistan — had managed to avoid arrest and deportation. Relative security Hayatullah moved the family to Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and a region mostly populated by Pashtuns — the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan. 'Compared to Islamabad, the police here don't harass us as much,' he said. The only province governed by the opposition party of former Prime Minister Imran Khan — who is now in prison and in open conflict with the federal government — Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is considered a refuge of relative security for Afghans. Samad Khan, a 38-year-old Afghan who also spoke using a pseudonym, also chose to relocate his family to Peshawar. Born in eastern Pakistan's Lahore city, he set foot in Afghanistan for the first time on April 22 — the day he was deported. 'We have no relatives in Afghanistan, and there's no sign of life. There's no work, no income, and the Taliban are extremely strict,' he said. At first, he tried to find work in a country where 85 per cent of the population lives on less than one dollar a day, but after a few weeks he instead found a way back to Pakistan. 'I paid 50,000 rupees (around RM767) to an Afghan truck driver,' he said, using one of his Pakistani employees' ID cards to cross the border. He rushed back to Lahore to bundle his belongings and wife and two children — who had been left behind — into a vehicle, and moved to Peshawar. 'I started a second-hand shoe business with the support of a friend. The police here don't harass us like they do in Lahore, and the overall environment is much better,' he told AFP. Afghan refugees wait in a queue at a registration centre, after arriving from Pakistan, in Takhta Pul district of Kandahar province on April 13, 2025. It's hard to say how many Afghans have returned to Pakistan, as data is scarce. — AFP pic 'Challenging' reintegration It's hard to say how many Afghans have returned, as data is scarce. Government sources, eager to blame the country's problems on supporters Khan, claim that hundreds of thousands of Afghans are already back and settled in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa — figures that cannot be independently verified. Migrant rights defenders in Pakistan say they've heard of such returns, but insist the numbers are limited. The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) told AFP that 'some Afghans who were returned have subsequently chosen to remigrate to Pakistan'. 'When individuals return to areas with limited access to basic services and livelihood opportunities, reintegration can be challenging,' said Avand Azeez Agha, communications officer for the UN agency in Kabul. They might move on again, he said, 'as people seek sustainable opportunities'. — AFP
Arab News
2 days ago
- Politics
- Arab News
Homeland insecurity: Expelled Afghans seek swift return to Pakistan
PESHAWAR, Pakistan: Pakistan says it has expelled more than a million Afghans in the past two years, yet many have quickly attempted to return — preferring to take their chances dodging the law than struggle for existence in a homeland some had never even seen before. 'Going back there would be sentencing my family to death,' said Hayatullah, a 46-year-old Afghan deported via the Torkham border crossing in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in early 2024. Since April and a renewed deportation drive, some 200,000 Afghans have spilled over the two main border crossings from Pakistan, entering on trucks loaded with hastily packed belongings. But they carry little hope of starting over in the impoverished country, where girls are banned from school after primary level. Hayatullah, a pseudonym, returned to Pakistan a month after being deported, traveling around 800 kilometers (500 miles) south to the Chaman border crossing in Balochistan, because for him, life in Afghanistan 'had come to a standstill.' He paid a bribe to cross the Chaman frontier, 'like all the day laborers who regularly travel across the border to work on the other side.' His wife and three children — including daughters, aged 16 and 18, who would be denied education in Afghanistan — had managed to avoid arrest and deportation. Hayatullah moved the family to Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and a region mostly populated by Pashtuns — the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan. 'Compared to Islamabad, the police here don't harass us as much,' he said. The only province governed by the opposition party of former Prime Minister Imran Khan — who is now in prison and in open conflict with the federal government — Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is considered a refuge of relative security for Afghans. Samad Khan, a 38-year-old Afghan who also spoke using a pseudonym, also chose to relocate his family to Peshawar. Born in eastern Pakistan's Lahore city, he set foot in Afghanistan for the first time on April 22 — the day he was deported. 'We have no relatives in Afghanistan, and there's no sign of life. There's no work, no income, and the Taliban are extremely strict,' he said. At first, he tried to find work in a country where 85 percent of the population lives on less than one dollar a day, but after a few weeks he instead found a way back to Pakistan. 'I paid 50,000 rupees (around $180) to an Afghan truck driver,' he said, using one of his Pakistani employees' ID cards to cross the border. He rushed back to Lahore to bundle his belongings and wife and two children — who had been left behind — into a vehicle, and moved to Peshawar. 'I started a second-hand shoe business with the support of a friend. The police here don't harass us like they do in Lahore, and the overall environment is much better,' he told AFP. It's hard to say how many Afghans have returned, as data is scarce. Government sources, eager to blame the country's problems on supporters of Khan, claim that hundreds of thousands of Afghans are already back and settled in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa — figures that cannot be independently verified. Migrant rights defenders in Pakistan say they've heard of such returns, but insist the numbers are limited. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) told AFP that 'some Afghans who were returned have subsequently chosen to remigrate to Pakistan.' 'When individuals return to areas with limited access to basic services and livelihood opportunities, reintegration can be challenging,' said Avand Azeez Agha, communications officer for the UN agency in Kabul. They might move on again, he said, 'as people seek sustainable opportunities.'
Arab News
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Arab News
45 minutes to pack up a lifetime as Pakistan's foreigner crackdown sends Afghans scrambling
TORKHAM, Afghanistan: The order was clear and indisputable, the timeline startling. You have 45 minutes to pack up and leave Pakistan forever. Sher Khan, a 42-year-old Afghan, had returned home from his job in a brick factory. He stared at the plainclothes policeman on the doorstep, his mind reeling. How could he pack up his whole life and leave the country of his birth in under an hour? In the blink of an eye, the life he had built was taken away from him. He and his wife grabbed a few kitchen items and whatever clothes they could for themselves and their nine children. They left everything else behind at their home in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Born in Pakistan to parents who fled the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the ensuing war, Khan is one of hundreds of thousands of Afghans who have now been expelled. The nationwide crackdown, launched in October 2023, on foreigners Pakistan says are living in the country illegally has led to the departures of almost 1 million Afghans already. Pakistan says millions more remain. It wants them gone. Leaving with nothing to beat a deadline 'All our belongings were left behind,' Khan said as he stood in a dusty, windswept refugee camp just across the Afghan border in Torkham, the first stop for expelled refugees. 'We tried so hard (over the years) to collect the things that we had with honor.' Pakistan set several deadlines earlier this year for Afghans to leave or face deportation. Afghan Citizen Card holders had to leave the capital Islamabad and Rawalpindi city by March 31, while those with Proof of Registration could stay until June 30. No specific deadlines were set for Afghans living elsewhere in Pakistan. Khan feared that delaying his departure beyond the deadline might have resulted in his wife and children being hauled off to a police station along with him a blow to his family's dignity. 'We are happy that we came (to Afghanistan) with modesty and honor,' he said. As for his lost belongings, 'God may provide for them here, as He did there.' A refugee influx in a struggling country At the Torkham camp, run by Afghanistan's Taliban government, each family receives a SIM card and 10,000 Afghanis ($145) in aid. They can spend up to three days there before having to move on. The camp's director, Molvi Hashim Maiwandwal, said some 150 families were arriving daily from Pakistan — far fewer than the roughly 1,200 families who were arriving about two months ago. But he said another surge was expected after the three-day Islamic holiday of Eid Al-Adha. Aid organizations inside the camp help with basic needs, including health care. Local charity Aseel provides hygiene kits and helps with food. It has also set up a food package delivery system for families once they arrive at their final destination elsewhere in Afghanistan. Aseel's Najibullah Ghiasi said they expected a surge in arrivals 'by a significant number' after Eid. 'We cannot handle all of them, because the number is so huge,' he said, adding the organization was trying to boost fundraising so it could support more people. Pakistan blames Afghanistan for militancy Pakistan accuses Afghans of staging militant attacks inside the country, saying assaults are planned from across the border — a charge Kabul's Taliban government denies. Pakistan denies targeting Afghans, and maintains that everyone leaving the country is treated humanely and with dignity. But for many, there is little that is humane about being forced to pack up and leave in minutes or hours. Iran, too, has been expelling Afghans, with the UNHCR, the UN's refugee agency, saying on June 5 that 500,000 Afghans had been forced to leave Iran and Pakistan in the two months since April 1. Rights groups and aid agencies say authorities are pressuring Afghans into going sooner. In April, Human Rights Watch said police had raided houses, beaten and arbitrarily detained people, and confiscated refugee documents, including residence permits. Officers demanded bribes to allow Afghans to remain in Pakistan, the group added. Searching for hope while starting again Fifty-year-old Yar Mohammad lived in Azad Kashmir for nearly 45 years. The father of 12 built a successful business polishing floors, hiring several workers. Plainclothes policemen knocked on his door too. They gave him six hours to leave. 'No way a person can wrap up so much business in six hours, especially if they spent 45 years in one place,' he said. Friends rushed to his aid to help pack up anything they could: the company's floor-polishing machines, some tables, bed-frames and mattresses, and clothes. Now all his household belongings are crammed into orange tents in the Torkham refugee camp, his hard-earned floor-polishing machines outside and exposed to the elements. After three days of searching, he managed to find a place to rent in Kabul. 'I have no idea what we will do,' he said, adding that he would try to recreate his floor-polishing business in Afghanistan. 'If this works here, it is the best thing to do.'
Associated Press
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Associated Press
Pakistan crackdown sends Afghan families to unknown future
Pakistan wants to expel three million Afghans by the end of this year, saying they are in the country illegally, but many have lived there for decades. Returning refugees have been forced to head to a camp across the border, in Torkham, where thousands arrive every week and face a new future in a country they don't know. Pakistan denies targeting Afghans and says everyone leaving is treated humanely and with dignity.
Arab News
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Arab News
Few minutes to pack up a lifetime: Pakistan's foreigner crackdown sends Afghans scrambling
TORKHAM, Afghanistan: The order was clear and indisputable, the timeline startling. You have 45 minutes to pack up and leave Pakistan forever. Sher Khan, a 42-year-old Afghan, had returned home from his job in a brick factory. He stared at the plainclothes policeman on the doorstep, his mind reeling. How could he pack up his whole life and leave the country of his birth in under an hour? In the blink of an eye, the life he had built was taken away from him. He and his wife grabbed a few kitchen items and whatever clothes they could for themselves and their nine children. They left everything else behind at their home in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. Born in Pakistan to parents who fled the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the ensuing war, Khan is one of hundreds of thousands of Afghans who have now been expelled. The nationwide crackdown, launched in October 2023, on foreigners Pakistan says are living in the country illegally has led to the departures of almost 1 million Afghans already. Pakistan says millions more remain. It wants them gone. Leaving with nothing to beat a deadline 'All our belongings were left behind,' Khan said as he stood in a dusty, windswept refugee camp just across the Afghan border in Torkham, the first stop for expelled refugees. 'We tried so hard (over the years) to collect the things that we had with honor.' Pakistan set several deadlines earlier this year for Afghans to leave or face deportation. Afghan Citizen Card holders had to leave the capital Islamabad and Rawalpindi city by March 31, while those with Proof of Registration could stay until June 30. No specific deadlines were set for Afghans living elsewhere in Pakistan. Khan feared that delaying his departure beyond the deadline might have resulted in his wife and children being hauled off to a police station along with him a blow to his family's dignity. 'We are happy that we came (to Afghanistan) with modesty and honor,' he said. As for his lost belongings, 'God may provide for them here, as He did there.' A refugee influx in a struggling country At the Torkham camp, run by Afghanistan's Taliban government, each family receives a SIM card and 10,000 Afghanis ($145) in aid. They can spend up to three days there before having to move on. The camp's director, Molvi Hashim Maiwandwal, said some 150 families were arriving daily from Pakistan – far fewer than the roughly 1,200 families who were arriving about two months ago. But he said another surge was expected after the three-day Islamic holiday of Eid Al-Adha that started June 7. Aid organizations inside the camp help with basic needs, including health care. Local charity Aseel provides hygiene kits and helps with food. It has also set up a food package delivery system for families once they arrive at their final destination elsewhere in Afghanistan. Aseel's Najibullah Ghiasi said they expected a surge in arrivals 'by a significant number' after Eid. 'We cannot handle all of them, because the number is so huge,' he said, adding the organization was trying to boost fundraising so it could support more people. Pakistan blames Afghanistan for militancy Pakistan accuses Afghans of staging militant attacks inside the country, saying assaults are planned from across the border – a charge Kabul's Taliban government denies. Pakistan denies targeting Afghans, and maintains that everyone leaving the country is treated humanely and with dignity. But for many, there is little that is humane about being forced to pack up and leave in minutes or hours. Iran, too, has been expelling Afghans, with the UNHCR, the UN's refugee agency, saying on June 5 that 500,000 Afghans had been forced to leave Iran and Pakistan in the two months since April 1. Rights groups and aid agencies say authorities are pressuring Afghans into going sooner. In April, Human Rights Watch said police had raided houses, beaten and arbitrarily detained people, and confiscated refugee documents, including residence permits. Officers demanded bribes to allow Afghans to remain in Pakistan, the group added. Searching for hope while starting again Fifty-year-old Yar Mohammad lived in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir for nearly 45 years. The father of 12 built a successful business polishing floors, hiring several workers. Plainclothes policemen knocked on his door too. They gave him six hours to leave. 'No way a person can wrap up so much business in six hours, especially if they spent 45 years in one place,' he said. Friends rushed to his aid to help pack up anything they could: the company's floor-polishing machines, some tables, bed-frames and mattresses, and clothes. Now all his household belongings are crammed into orange tents in the Torkham refugee camp, his hard-earned floor-polishing machines outside and exposed to the elements. After three days of searching, he managed to find a place to rent in Kabul. 'I have no idea what we will do,' he said, adding that he would try to recreate his floor-polishing business in Afghanistan. 'If this works here, it is the best thing to do.'
