40,000 Afghan refugees leave Pakistan's Balochistan

More than two years after Pakistan started a crackdown against Afghan nationals, nearly 40,000 of them have left Balochistan capital Quetta, a top provincial official has said on Saturdy. Since October 2023, when Pakistan asked all the foreign nationals, including Afghan illegal immigrants, to leave voluntarily or face deportation, the deadline has been extended multiple times. Pakistan hosts over 1.7 million registered Afghan refugees, with many more living without documentation. The government recently launched yet another repatriation drive, citing security and economic concerns, prompting thousands of Afghans to return to their home country.

The authorities have fastened the deportation measures by ordering the closure of around 54 Afghan refugee camps across the country. Quetta Commissioner Mir Ullah Badhani said that most of the Afghans who have returned home were living in the Afghan Basti (town) on the Eastern bypass of Quetta for the last 35-40 years and had constructed quarters and buildings for residence and businesses.

Feroze Shah, a resident of Qadirabad, as the basti is known, said it was occupied mostly by poor people who were forced to leave or were leaving for Afghanistan, uncertain of their future and were without any proper belongings. “Over the past two years, hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees have been expelled from different parts of Pakistan, some of whom are our relatives or belong to our tribes,” he said.“Now the influx has grown because winter will soon start in Afghanistan, and people want to cross over so that they can settle down and find places to stay before peak cold,” he added.