Islamabad: As part of the ongoing campaign to deport illegal and Afghan Citizen Card (ACC) holders from Pakistan, the government has repatriated about 1.3 million Afghan nationals since November 2023, Pakistan’s Parliamentary Secretary Mukhtar Ahmed Malik said during a meeting.
The parliamentary committee overseeing the repatriation drive was informed that the government targetted illegal Afghan nationals living in the country, allowing them the opportunity to leave voluntarily, adding that a parallel operation was launched to crackdown against those who were still present after the deadline of March 31 expired.
The committee was told that a warning was issued to all illegal Afghan nationals that they would be deported after the deadline ends. Moreover, the government later on decided to also deport those Afghan nationals who were in possession of Afghan Citizen Card (ACC), thus expanding the domain of the expulsion campaign by the government.
Launched in 2017, the ACC grants temporary legal status to Afghan refugees.
"There are at least three million Afghan refugees residing in Pakistan. Of these, 813,000 hold Afghan Citizen Cards (ACC) while 1.3 million possess Proof of Registration (PoR) cards," said Mukhtar Ahmed Malik.
"Those Afghans who wish to enter Pakistan for medical treatment, education, or business purposes are welcome to do so provided they obtain a Pakistani visa and carry valid documentation with them," he added.
On the other hand, there are thousands of Afghan families in Pakistan, who do not wish to go back to Afghanistan, and are demanding the Pakistan government to reconsider their deportation.
"I was born in Pakistan, married in Pakistan, have kids in Pakistan. We do not know anything about Afghanistan. My father brought me here when I was a five-year-old. Since then, we are living here," said Rahimullah, an Afghan refugee in Pakistan.
"Now, they want us to leave. I ask them, where would we go and what would our children do there? Do they have a future there? We want to request the Pakistan government to reconsider for the sake of the future of our children," he added.
Pakistan has been home to over 2.8 million Afghan refugees for over 40 years. However, the deportation drive to expel Afghan nationals from the country began after Islamabad blamed the Afghan Taliban interim government in Kabul for cross-border terrorism supporting and supporting anti-Pakistan groups, including the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). As tensions simmered, Pakistan has made it clear that it would not host Afghan nationals in the country anymore.
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