Despite criticism from several international organisations, Pakistan launched the second phase of its forced repatriation plan for Afghan refugees, which began in 2023. The lives of Afghan human rights activists and members of the former pro-Western regime are at risk. For Pakistani authorities, expulsions are a way to pressure the Taliban, accused of supporting terrorist groups operating in Pakistan.

Islamabad (AsiaNews) – About 45,000 Afghan refugees have been repatriated from Pakistan, some by force, since the start of April, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reported. This follows Pakistan’s decision to resume its Illegal Foreigners Repatriation Plan (IFRP), launched at the end of 2023, and now in its second phase.

In early March, the Pakistani government announced plans to repatriate Afghan Citizenship Card (ACC) holders who had not left the country voluntarily by 1 April. Pakistan is not a signatory to the Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees, but accepts the presence of the UNHCR on its territory.

Pakistani authorities introduced the ACC in 2017 to keep track of Afghans in the country. An estimated 800,000 Afghans with this type of document have already been forced to leave; however, many Afghan refugees are also holders of Proof of Registration (PoR), a card issued in collaboration with UNHCR that should guarantee them the right to legally reside in Pakistan.

Despite this, Afghans with such proof of residence have also been sent back to Afghanistan and human rights advocates have complained that in some Pakistani provinces, police are conducting raids looking for Afghan nationals.

An estimated three million Afghans live in Pakistan, 1.3 million with a regular permit. According to UNHCR data, more than 8,900 Afghans had already returned to Afghanistan as of 31 March, even though their safety is at risk under the Taliban, who returned to power in August 2021.

Activists and members of the previous Afghan government supported by the US-led Western coalition fear that they will be persecuted or killed upon their return to Afghanistan.

“During the first ten days of April 2025 the deportation rate is higher (31%) than the first ten days of November 2023 (6%) which marked the start of the IFRP phase 1,” the UNHCR reported. “In the first five days of April, more arrests and detentions took place (1,655) than in any other month of 2025,” the organisation's latest report added.

In total, between September 2023, when the repatriation programme was first launched, and February 2025, at least 844,499 Afghan nationals returned to Afghanistan.

UNHCR also notes that 78 per cent of the people it provides aid to are women and children. On the Afghan side, the UN agency explained that it provides money to all those in possession of some type of humanitarian protection document to cope with the difficulties related to returning home, in some cases after many years of residence in Pakistan.

Many refugees have reported that they do not have a home and sufficient financial resources to provide for their families.

Since 15 September 2023, some 120,300 people returning from Pakistan have been provided with cash assistance in Kabul, Kandahar and Jalalabad encashment centres, including over 77,400 PoR cardholders. Out of those, some 2.4% are individuals with disabilities and over 3,300 PoR card holders, UNHCR slip holders and Asylum certificate holders were deported,” the UNHCR report reads.

Recently, the United States, which is progressively normalising relations with the Taliban, revoked the so-called temporary protected status granted to 14,600 Afghan refugees who fled the country after 2021.

After Kabul fell to the Taliban, tens of thousands of Afghans were evacuated to third countries awaiting relocation, 25,000 in Pakistan.

The Taliban government has so far responded to the question in a limited way. Taliban Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Salam Hanafi recently visited a refugee camp in Khas Kunar, a district in Kunar province, where 382 plots of land were distributed to returning refugees.

A temporary refugee camp has also been set up in Laghman province, but following the return to power of the Taliban, Afghanistan has faced a very serious humanitarian crisis.

The UN estimates that about 20 million people, almost half of the population, live below the poverty line, while the Taliban have progressively limited civil rights, especially those of women, who are not allowed to travel alone, work in contact with the public, or attend high school.

About four million Afghans found refuge in Pakistan since the 1980s; however, after the Taliban returned to power, relations between Kabul and Islamabad have become more complicated.

Pakistan accuses the Taliban of supporting terrorist groups that carry out attacks against Pakistani security forces (most notably the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), formally separate but ideologically close to their Afghan "cousins").

Driving refugees home seems to be an attempt to put pressure on Taliban authorities, despite several humanitarian organisations saying that the repatriations are worsening Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis.

(Photo: UNHCR)

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