More than 200,000 Afghans have left Pakistan since April

ISLAMABAD: More than 200,000 Afghans have left Pakistan since the government began a renewed deportation drive in April, Islamabad’s ministry of interior told AFP.

More than 135,000 Afghans left Pakistan in April, while the number dropped to 67,000 in May and more than 3,000 were sent back in the first two days of June, according to the ministry.

Millions of Afghans have poured into Pakistan over the past several decades, fleeing successive wars. Hundreds of thousands have come since the return of the Taliban government in 2021.

But over one million Afghans have left Pakistan since Islamabad launched its repatriation program in 2023, the ministry added.

The UN’s International Organization for Migration 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.

The influx across both borders threatens to strain Afghanistan’s already “fragile reception and reintegration systems”, IOM said in a statement.

Pakistan’s Ministry of Interior asked Afghan Citizen Card (ACC) holders, staying in Pakistan, to leave the country by March 31.

The Afghan nationals will be deported from April 1st, the ministry said in a statement.

“Illegal Foreigners Repatriation Program (IFRP) is being implemented since November 1, 2023. In continuation of the government’s decision to repatriate all illegal foreigners, national leadership has now decided to also repatriate ACC holders,” the interior ministry said in an official handout.

“All illegal foreigners and ACC holders are advised to leave the country voluntarily before March 31, 2025; thereafter, deportation will commence from April 1, 2025,” the statement added.

The interior ministry said that sufficient time had already been granted for their dignified return. “It is emphasised that no one will be maltreated during the repatriation process and arrangements for food and healthcare for returning foreigners have also been put in place.”

Over 8,00,000 Afghans living in Pakistan illegally were repatriated to their country in the first phase as Pakistan authorities launched the campaign in November 2023.

It is estimated that around 3 million Afghans still reside in Pakistan.