Thousands of Afghan have crossed the border from Pakistan in recent days, the United Nations officials and the Taliban said, since Islamabad increased the pressure to return to their country of origin.
Pakistan last month established a deadline of early April for about 800,000 Afghans that carry Afghan citizen cards (ACC) issued by the Pakistan authorities to leave the country, another phase in the Islamabad campaign in recent years to eliminate Afghans from the country.
Families with their belongings to Tow aligned at Torkham’s key borders in the north and turn to Boldak in the south, remembering similar scenes in 2023 when tens of thousands of Afghan fled from deportation threats in Pakistan.
“In the last 2 days, 8,025 undocumented headlines and ACC returned through Torkham & Spin Ballak Crossings,” the International UN Migration Organization (IIM) on a publication on the Social Network Platform X.
Taliban officials also said that thousands of people had crossed the border, but at lower rates than the IOM reported.
The spokesman for the Ministry of Refugees, Abdul Mutalib Haqqani, said AFP That 6,000-7,000 Afghan had returned since the beginning of April, warning that the numbers could increase in the next few days after the end of the holidays that mark the end of the Ramadan.
“We urge the authorities of Pakistan not to deport them (Afghas) strongly: there must be an adequate mechanism with an agreement between the two countries, and they must be returned with dignity,” he said.
The UN says that almost three million Afghas live in Pakistan, many had fled there for decades of war in their country and after the return of the Taliban to power in Kabul in 2021.
The ties among neighboring countries have been frayed since the Taliban acquisition, and Pakistan accuses Kabul’s rulers not to obtain militants who take refuge in Afghan soil, a position that the Taliban government denies.
