1458 Afghan refugees deported from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

PESHAWAR: A total of 1,458 Afghan nationals holding citizen cards were repatriated to Afghanistan through the Torkham border from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, ARY News reported quoting home ministry.

According to Interior Ministry, 2,656 undocumented Afghan migrants were also deported. The Afghan national also includes 1,245 individuals who returned voluntarily and 213 who were deported.

Repatriations were also carried out from other regions, including Islamabad, where 15 card-holding and 92 undocumented Afghans were sent back, Punjab, where 198 card-holders and 451 undocumented individuals were repatriated, and Azad Kashmir, where 195 card-holding Afghan migrants returned.

Furthermore, 44 undocumented Afghans were deported from Sindh. Since September 2023, a total of 527,705 undocumented Afghan migrants have been sent back to Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur said that Afghan refugees will not be forced to leave or throw them on the border.

He opposed the government policy to tackle the people who resorted to arms.

“We have to see, why they have taken arms. They are our own people, we have to own them,” Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s CM here said. “We have solution of terrorism,” Gandapur claimed.

Talking on sending back Afghan refugees to home, KP chief minister said, “We could not throw them back on the border”. “We will not send Afghan migrants back until the Afghan government consents to accept them,” Gandapur said.

He said the KP government will not force any Afghan refugee to return. “We have to move ahead to negotiate with Afghanistan”, he said.