Ayaz Gul
VOA News
December 6, 2023

ISLAMABAD — A Pakistani diplomat said Wednesday that nearly 450,000 Afghan nationals returned to their home country since his government announced two months ago that it would deport all undocumented foreigners.

Asif Durrani, Pakistan’s special envoy to Afghanistan, shared the latest data while addressing a seminar in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. He spoke on a day the United Nations renewed its warning that Afghans returning from Pakistan “face a precarious, uncertain future” in their crisis-hit and impoverished nation.

The Pakistani government says its crackdown is primarily targeting an estimated 1.7 million Afghans who have overstayed their visas or do not possess any document to justify their stay in the country.

“Those who have been asked to leave are the illegal immigrants here. They don’t enjoy the refugee status,” Durrani stressed. “So, almost 450,000 [Afghans] have left. They knew that they were illegal stayers here in Pakistan.”

Those subjects of the deportation drive include close to 700,000 people who took refuge in Pakistan after the withdrawal of the United States and NATO troops from Afghanistan in August 2021.

Durrani clarified again, however, that nearly 2.3 million documented Afghan nationals, including 1.4 legal refugees, hosted by his country are not being asked to leave.

The envoy rejected international criticism of the “lawful” expulsions, saying countries around the world routinely deport foreigners who breach their immigration laws. “It [deportation] becomes legal there in Europe or elsewhere but doesn’t become legal here in Pakistan,” he said. “I think we need to remove this confusion.”

Washington is pressing Islamabad to prevent the deportation of approximately 25,000 “vulnerable” individuals who fled the Taliban’s August 2021 takeover in Afghanistan and could be eligible for relocation to or resettlement in the United States.

Julieta Valls Noyes, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, discussed the resettlement of the Afghan refugees with Pakistani officials during her visit to Islamabad this week, the U.S. Embassy said in a statement Wednesday.

It stated that Noyes “discussed how both countries can work together to accelerate the processing of Afghan nationals eligible for relocation or resettlement in the United States, expressed the U.S. desire to continue working with the government of Pakistan as we process individuals in U.S. resettlement pathways, and encouraged upholding international humanitarian principles, including non-refoulment, and protecting vulnerable refugees and asylum seekers.”

Noyes also met with U.N. officials in Islamabad and “heard directly from Afghan refugees on the concerns most important to them,” said the embassy statement.

A Pakistani official privy to the Noyes’ discussions with counterparts in Islamabad told VOA on Tuesday the United States did not oppose Islamabad’s deportation of illegal Afghan nationals but requested the process be slowed down during winter.

Meanwhile, the U.N. World Food Program said Wednesday that returnees are unsure how they will survive a devastating winter in Afghanistan, where more than 6 million people are already internally displaced nationwide.

“These families arrive at the worst of times and face a bleak future in a country where one-third of people do not know where their next meal will come from,” said Hsiao-Wei Lee, the WFP country director. “Leaving behind their homes and livelihoods, they return to start over in a country that gives them few economic opportunities and where many struggle to survive.”

The WFP said it urgently needs $26.3 million to support 1 million returnees from Pakistan arriving in Afghanistan and help them through the winter and into the first months of next year.

In his Wednesday speech, Durrani cited growing terrorist attacks in the country, among other factors, for unleashing the crackdown on undocumented Afghan and other foreign nationals. He said fugitive militants linked to the anti-state Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, are plotting the bloodshed from their sanctuaries on Afghan soil.

“The TTP’s enhanced attacks on Pakistan while using Afghan soil have been a serious source of concern for Pakistan,” the envoy reiterated. He reported a 65% increase in TTP attacks in the country’s border areas this year, saying suicide bombings shot up 500% during the same period.

“Another worrying aspect of these attacks has been the involvement of Afghans. Out of 24 attacks by the TTP, 14 were Afghan nationals,” Durrani said.

Related

• At-Risk Afghans Who Fled To Pakistan Face Deportation, Despite Being In U.S. Immigration Pipeline

Ayaz Gul
VOA News
December 5, 2023

ISLAMABAD — Pakistani officials said Tuesday that the United States did not object to Islamabad’s deportation of Afghan nationals who are illegally residing in the country but requested the process be slowed down during winter.

The crackdown on undocumented foreigners, including 1.7 million Afghans, came under discussion at a meeting with a visiting U.S. delegation led by Julieta Valls Noyes, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration.

A Pakistani official privy to the talks said that the U.S. side sought to prevent the deportation of around 25,000 “vulnerable” individuals who fled the Taliban’s August 2021 takeover in neighboring Afghanistan and could be eligible for relocation to or resettlement in the United States.

“The government of Pakistan doesn’t want to deport any vulnerable Afghan, irrespective of whether someone appears on the U.S. prospective resettlement list or any other country,” the official told VOA on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to share details of the talks publicly.

“Pakistan is concerned over the lengthy resettlement process the U.S. has adopted,” he said. “One thing is clear: The U.S. didn’t oppose Pakistan’s deportation policy. It, however, pleaded for going slow during the harsh winters,” the Pakistani official told VOA.

VOA reached out to the State Department to seek a response to Pakistani assertions that Washington is not opposed to the deportations of Afghans but did not get a response immediately.

Neither Pakistani nor U.S. officials formally released details of the meeting Noyes held with Asif Durrani, Pakistan’s special representative on Afghanistan.

“Good to visit Pakistani Foreign Ministry and see Special Representative for Afghanistan @AsifDurrani20 again today for discussion on Afghan refugees, protection, and resettlement,” Noyes said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Durrani also shared a few details about his talks with the U.S. delegation on his X social media platform. “We discussed issues concerning Afghan refugees and their resettlement,” he said.

A pre-visit U.S. State Department statement said that during her four-day visit, Noyes would meet with government officials and nongovernmental and international organization partners to “discuss shared efforts to protect vulnerable individuals and accelerate safe, efficient relocation and resettlement of Afghan refugees in the U.S. immigration pipelines.”

Official data shows that Pakistan’s deportation drive has forced more than 400,000 people to return to Afghanistan since mid-September.

The United Nations and global human rights groups have criticized the crackdown and urged Islamabad to urgently halt it, noting that Afghanistan suffers from a dire humanitarian crisis stemming from years of war and natural disasters.

Pakistani authorities defend the deportation drive, linking a recent surge in deadly, nationwide terrorist attacks to the undocumented Afghan population.

In a separate statement on X, Noyes said she held an “important conversation” with representatives of the U.N. refugee agency in Islamabad and discussed “our shared commitment to support vulnerable Afghans in Pakistan.”

American and NATO troops withdrew from Afghanistan in August 2021 when the then-insurgent Taliban seized power from a Washington-backed government in Kabul. They also evacuated tens of thousands of Afghans who worked with the international military mission during its two-decades-long presence in the country, fearing they would face Taliban reprisals.

Pakistan’s otherwise close relations with the Taliban government have come under severe strain over the deportation drive.

De facto Afghan authorities have denounced the policy as unjust and inhumane, saying it has ended the goodwill the neighboring country earned for hosting millions of refugees from conflict-torn Afghanistan over the past four decades.

The Pakistani government says the country still hosts more than 2.2 million documented Afghans, including 1.4 million legal refugees. They are not the subjects of the ongoing crackdown.