Pakistan’s Shehbaz Sharif government has refused to stop its forceful displacement of Afghan refugees despite repeated calls from the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and other human rights groups in the country to respect their rights and safety concerns.
Thousands of Afghan refugees have been arrested and deported since a new round of forceful expulsion of millions of refugees began earlier this month as per the orders issued by the Pakistan government on March 7.
Refugees given ultimatum to leave by March 31
The March 7 order had set a deadline for all Afghan refugees, calling them “illegal foreigners”, to leave the country voluntarily by March 31. It later extended the deadline by two more days due to the Eid holidays.
Several human rights groups and refugees have since reported harassment by the authorities, claiming arbitrary arrests and raids at residences have created mass panic among the refugees living in different parts of the country.
“We urge Pakistan to immediately stop mass internal relocations, deportations, arrests, evictions, intimidation and other pressures on Afghans to cross the border into Afghanistan, and to uphold the absolute and non-derogable principle of non-refoulement,” said a number of UN experts in a joint statement last Friday.
However, on Saturday, April 5, the highest number of deportations were recorded in the current phase, Dawn reported.
The large-scale arrests of refugees and the complaints of harassment by the authorities compelled certain human rights groups to approach the court in Peshawar in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan where the largest number of refugees live.
On Monday, the court ordered a halt to the deportation of Afghans holding Proof of Registration (PoR) cards until June 30. A similar order was issued by the Islamabad High Court in early March.
The Peshawar court also ordered the release of all arrested detainees with a valid PoR card and even noted their right to return if already deported. It also ordered human rights activists and lawyers to visit the detention centers and monitor the condition of the detainees.
Pakistan is not a signatory of the 1951 refugee convention or its 1967 protocol. However, the rights of refugees in the country are claimed under the provisions of Pakistan’s constitution.
Forceful dislocation of refugees is not sustainable
According to the Dawn, as of April 9, almost 500,000 refugees have been sent back to Afghanistan since their expulsion first began in September 2023. Others estimate the numbers to be higher. Over 20,000 Afghan refugees have been sent back so far in the current round which began on April 3.
UNHCR has pointed out that a large number of women, as well as children, are the most vulnerable if forced to live in Afghanistan in the current circumstances. It has also pointed out the lack of roots for most of the refugees in the country given the fact that most of them left Afghanistan decades ago.
“The latest directives from the government represent a significant disruption to the fabric of many communities” which have been hosting the Afghan refugees for decades. Forced relocations without any planning “are unlikely to be sustainable” said Philippa Candler, UNHCR representative to Pakistan in a statement on March 30.
Calling millions of Afghans, who have been living in the country for decades, a “threat to national security and economic prosperity,” successive governments in Pakistan have tried to expel them for years now. The government claims the prolonged presence of Afghans in the country is draining the country’s national economy.
Afghan refugees have been living in Pakistan for decades due to prolonged wars in the country since the late 1970s. Most of them have become part of Pakistan’s society, with multiple generations born and raised there.
According to UNHCR there were around three million Afghans in Pakistan before the expulsions began. Out of these, nearly 2.18 million were registered with the UNHCR, including the 15,000 Afghans waiting for repatriation to the US, as per the arrangements made following American withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021.
Nearly half of the registered Afghan refugees have PoR cards in Pakistan and over 800,000 of them have Afghan Citizenship Cards (ACC) issued by the UNHCR. The rest of the refugees are undocumented.
