- Only those who choose to return voluntarily are being repatriated.
- Afghan families are being housed in two retention centers in KP.
- According to UNHCR, there are 2.1 million documented Afghans in Pakistan.
Peshawar: The mapping process of undocumented foreigners and holders of the Afghan Citizen Card (ACC) is currently in progress in several parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, but strict measures are not being taken, after the security of the main minister Ali Amin Gandapur that no Afghan national will be repatriated by attention, The news reported.
According to a police officer, no action against Afghan families has been initiated anywhere in the province. Those who choose to return voluntarily are being assisted by the interested authorities.
“The mapping is underway in different parts of the provincial capital,” said the senior superintendent of police operations, Ahmad Bangash The news. The Federal Government had ordered the repatriation of the holders of the undocumented and Afghan Citizen Card (ACC) foreign after the deadline of March 31. The repatriation has begun from Punjab, Sindh and the Federal Capital through Torkham.
Afghan families that come from other provinces are temporarily organized in two tenure centers in Peshawar and Khyber before repatriation to Afghanistan. However, the police and administration in KP have not been ordered by the provincial government so far to take any measure against the owners of ACC.
“The Seniors have instructed us that no one will be forced to leave. Only those who want to leave voluntarily are being repatriated,” said an official.
There are innumerable videos on social networks in which families that return voluntarily after decades of stay in Pakistan received an emotional farewell to the locals. Many of the Afghan who stay in Pakistan for about 45 years have developed close relations with the locals, and some have even married the locals. Several cases of such families are also in court.
According to the High Commission of the United Nations for Refugees (UNHCR), there are 2.1 million Afghan documented in Pakistan, and most of them have been established in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Of the 2.1 million, more than 800,000 are ACC holders, while around 1.3 million have the registration test cards (POR).
Although there are no action in KP, there are many families that have begun to pack for their homeland due to an uncertain future after spending more than four decades in Pakistan.
They include tens of thousands of those born in Pakistan and have barely visited their country throughout their lives. Pakistan has host millions of Afghans for almost five decades since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.
While hundreds of thousands of families have returned to their country in recent years, more than 2.1 million still live in KP and other provinces. Some government departments have put the number of Afghans in Pakistan in more than three million.
These do not include undocumented foreigners, as well as those who are said to obtain Pakistani documents. UNHCR has recently expressed its concerns regarding the process.
“ACNUR is concerned about the last directive, as among Afghan citizen card holders, there may be individuals who require international protection. In that sense, we are urging the government to see their situation through a humanitarian lens,” said Qaiser Khan Afridi, the UNHCR spokesperson.
