Pakistan plans to expel entire Afghan refugee population: Afghan embassy

Pakistan wants to remove all Afghan refugees from the country and they face expulsion in the near future, the Afghan embassy in Islamabad warned today (19 February).

The embassy issued a strongly worded statement about Pakistan's plans, saying Afghan nationals in the capital, Islamabad, and the nearby garrison city of Rawalpindi have been subjected to arrests, searches, and orders from the police to leave the twin cities and relocate to other parts of Pakistan.

"This process of detaining Afghans, which began without any formal announcement, has not been officially communicated to the Embassy of Afghanistan in Islamabad through any formal correspondence," it said.

"Ultimately, officials from Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that there is a definitive and final plan to deport or remove all Afghan refugees not only from Islamabad and Rawalpindi but also from the entire country in the near future," the embassy said.

Besides hundreds of thousands of those living illegally in Pakistan, there are around 1.45 million Afghan nationals registered with UNHCR as refugees. Authorities say those who are registered earlier had their stay extended until June 2025, and they will not be arrested or deported at least the extension expires.

The Pakistani government has not commented so far.

The latest development comes more than two weeks after Pakistan's government threatened to deport Afghan nationals living in the country illegally. Sharif has also approved deportation of those awaiting relocation to third countries unless their cases are swiftly processed by the governments who have agreed to take them.

The Afghan embassy said it had already "expressed serious concerns in meetings with Pakistani authorities and international organisations regarding the mass expulsion of Afghan refugees within such a short timeframe and the unilateral nature of Pakistan's decision".

Pakistan has set 31 March as a deadline to expel Afghan refugees from Islamabad and Rawalpindi in preparation for their deportation if they are not relocated to the host countries that agreed to take them after the Afghan Taliban seized power in 2021. Authorities say they are in contact with those countries.

In the past three years, tens of thousands of Afghans have fled to Pakistan. Many of them were approved for resettlement in the US through a program that helps people at risk because of their work with the American government, media, aid agencies and rights groups.

However, US President Donald Trump paused US refugee programs last month. Since then, around 20,000 Afghans are now in limbo in Pakistan.

In January, the Trump administration also announced the US Refugee Admissions Program would be suspended from 27 January for at least three months, and since then Afghans living in Pakistan have been urging Trump to revive the program, so that they could travel to the United States to start a new life.

These Afghans have been facing harassment and even arrest since October 2023, when Pakistan began cracking down on foreigners living in the country illegally.

Although the government said the campaign was not aimed at Afghans, they make up the majority of foreigners in Pakistan, and since then more than 800,000 Afghan nationals have been deported or forced to leave the country under a so-called voluntary repatriation plan.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has also reported an increase in deportation of Afghans in January.

IOM this week in a report said, "Afghan nationals are being deported to Afghanistan from Islamabad and Rawalpindi."

It said there is an increase of 13% in those Afghans returning home from 16 January to 31 January compared to the first two weeks in January. It said 824,568 Afghans have returned home since 2023.