Pakistan: Forced repatriation of Afghans begins, Won't deport: KP CM

In Pakistan, the administration in Karachi has started the ‘forced repatriation’ of an estimated 16,138 Afghan Citizenship Card (ACC) holders, with over 150 so far detained as part of the government’s policy to deport all undocumented foreign nationals, officials said on Friday.lawyer and founding member of the Joint Action Committee for Refugees (JAC) Moniza Kakar informed local media that there are a total of 850,000 ACC holders in the country who received their cards in 2017. Of them, 70,000 were reportedly living in Karachi.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur on Friday announced that no Afghan refugee would be deported “forcefully” from the northwestern region of the country. Addressing a press conference in Islamabad, the KP CM said: "We are against such kind of forcible deportation of Afghan refugees.” CM Gandapur said: "We have cultural and historical traditions regarding Afghan refugees," adding that those refugees who wish to leave voluntarily would be provided with resources to facilitate their return with respect. Responding to a question, the chief minister said that the only way forward with Afghanistan is through negotiations.Gandapur said that stability in the region was linked with peace in Afghanistan. He said that PTI had the solution to the menace of terrorism being faced by the country. Gandapur claimed that Pakistan faces violence partly because it is an Islamic state and "the region is where the Ghazwa-e-Hind is expected." He linked terrorism to international interests, saying US-Pakistan agreements had pointed to the region’s rich mineral resources, after which violence intensified. According to data obtained by Geo News, there are currently 2.1 million registered and unregistered Afghan refugees in Pakistan. Over 700,000 undocumented Afghans have already left Pakistan since the process was launched in November 2023.
Meanwhile, experts from the UN urged Pakistan not to proceed with plans to force Afghans from the cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi, nor to deport them to Afghanistan, according to a statement from the organisation’s human rights body (UNHCR). The experts called on the government to “continue its important role as a neighbouring country with a long history of hosting Afghans fleeing their country”, the statement read. “Millions of Afghans in Pakistan are at risk of being pushed back to Afghanistan without regard for their genuine protection concerns — including gender-based violence and the systemic dismantling of the rights of women and girls — in violation of international human rights law and refugee law, and disregarding UNHCR’s non-return advisory,” the experts were quoted as saying.“The most vulnerable are Afghan women, girls, LGBTI persons, ethnic and religious minorities, former government officials and security personnel, human rights defenders, and media workers,” the experts said.