ISLAMABAD: More than 200,000 Afghans have left Pakistan since the government renewed a deportation drive in April, with Iran also stepping up expulsions of Afghans.
Generations of Afghans have fled to Pakistan and Iran during decades of successive wars, seeking safety and better economic opportunities.
Both governments have grown weary of large migrant populations and ordered millions to leave under the threat of arrest.
Pakistan has launched a strict campaign to evict more than 800,000 Afghans who have had their residence permits cancelled, including some who were born in the country or lived there for decades.
According to the interior ministry, more than 135,000 Afghans left Pakistan in April, while around 67,000 departed in May and more than 3,000 were sent back in the first two days of June.
The number of returnees has slowed ahead of the Eidul Azha holiday later this week, but some Afghans were still crossing the main border points from Pakistan today.
“We left behind our orchards” and livelihoods, 21-year-old farmer Mohammad Wali told AFP near the Spin Boldak crossing.
“But we said to ourselves, ‘If we stay, maybe one day we’ll lose our dignity,’ so it’s better to return to our homeland now.”
The UN’s International Organisation for Migration (IOM) on Tuesday voiced concern over a surge in Afghan families being deported from Iran, recording 15,675 crossing in May, a more than two-fold increase from the previous month.
Iranian officials have ordered Afghans without documentation to leave by July 6.
Nader Yarahmadi, from the Iranian interior ministry, said on state television that it would affect around four million of the more than 6m Afghans who Iran says are in the country.
The IOM said the influx across both borders threatens to strain Afghanistan’s already “fragile reception and reintegration systems”.
It again called for “all countries to immediately suspend the forced return of Afghans, regardless of their immigration status, until safe, voluntary, and dignified return conditions are in place”.
Rise in border violence
Millions of Afghans have poured into Pakistan over the past several decades, fleeing successive wars, as well as hundreds of thousands who arrived after the return of the Taliban government in 2021.
A campaign to evict them began in 2023, prompting hundreds of thousands to cross the border in a matter of weeks, fearing harassment or arrest. In total, more than one million Afghans have left Pakistan.
Islamabad has labelled Afghans “terrorists and criminals”, but analysts say the expulsions are designed to pressure Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities to control militancy in the border regions.
Last year, Pakistan recorded the highest number of deaths from attacks in a decade.
Pakistan’s security forces are under enormous pressure along the border with Afghanistan, confronting rising attacks by terrorists in Balochistan and the banned militant Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and its affiliates in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The government frequently accuses Afghan nationals of taking part in attacks and blames Kabul for allowing militants to take refuge on its soil, a charge Taliban leaders deny.
Some Pakistanis have grown weary of hosting a large Afghan population as security and economic woes deepen, and the deportation campaign has widespread support.
Pakistan is now threatening to lift the protection granted to the 1.3m Afghans holding refugee cards issued by the UN high commissioner for refugees at the end of June.
