Tens of thousands of Afghans flee Pakistan as deadline looms

PESHAWAR: More than 20,000 Afghans living in Pakistan rushed to the borders on Tuesday, ahead of a government deadline for 1.7 million undocumented people to leave or face arrest and deportation.

Millions of Afghans have poured into Pakistan, fleeing decades of successive conflicts, including an estimated 600,000 since the Taliban government seized power in August 2021 and imposed its harsh interpretation of Islamic law.

The Pakistan government has said from Wednesday it would begin arresting undocumented Afghans who refuse to leave and taking them to new holding centres, from where they will be processed and forcibly returned to Afghanistan.

Afghans would be allowed to leave voluntarily until the November 1 deadline, after which staggered deportations will begin from Thursday, Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti said in a video statement.

“Only those people who are completely illegal will leave Pakistan,” he said on Tuesday afternoon.

At least 18,000 people had joined a snaking, seven-kilometre-long queue at the Torkham border in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province by Tuesday afternoon, Irshad Mohmand, a senior government official said. Another 5,000 people had arrived at the southern Chaman crossing in Balochistan, border officials there said.

“Thousands of Afghan refugees are waiting for their turn in vehicles, lorries and trucks, and the number continues to grow,” Mohmand told.

Once over the border, they face a further bottleneck as they must register with Afghan officials. The Taliban government’s defence minister Mullah Yaqoob said Pakistan’s policy was “cruel and barbaric”.