For decades, Pakistan has been a safe haven for Afghan citizens seeking asylum due to war and the return of the Taliban, however, the country has ordered asylum seekers out of the country on or before November. The decision was stirred by the rising attacks occurring at the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, which Islamabad blames on individuals operating from Afghanistan.
An example is Balochistan, a province near Pakistan’s Afghanistan border, which has faced repeated attacks from various armed groups including the Pakistani Taliban and ISIS. Just recently, there was an explosion in the area that injured 11 people, including a well-known Muslim leader.
The Minister for States and Frontier Regions, Shehryar Khan Bugti, threatened that if they did not go then all law enforcement agencies in the provinces as well as the federal government would be utilized to deport them forcefully.
While data from the United Nations shows that approximately 1.3 million Afghans registered refugees in Pakistan, and 880,000 legal immigrants, Bugti stated that about 1.7 million individuals were staying in Pakistan “illegally,” as they had not yet obtained refugee status.
The Afghan embassy In a statement released on X (formerly Twitter), reported that over 1,000 Afghans were detained in the past two weeks.
