Islamabad: Thousands of people swamped Pakistan’s main northwestern border crossing seeking to cross into Afghanistan, a day after the government's deadline expired for undocumented foreigners to leave or face expulsion. Pakistani authorities began rounding up undocumented foreigners, most of them Afghans, hours before Wednesday’s deadline. More than 24,000 Afghans crossed the northwestern Torkham crossing into Afghanistan on Wednesday alone.
Thousands of Afghans have returned to their country in the past month while hundreds of families have been stranded at Torkham and Chaman border crossings, in Pakistan’s northwest and southwest, waiting for their turn to enter Afghanistan. Many of them, who were born or have lived in Pakistan for decades, are clueless about their future. Others are terrified to be heading back to Taliban-ruled country. Of the over four million Afghans living in Pakistan, the government estimates 1.7 million are undocumented.
In Islamabad, police have begun demolishing hundreds of illegally built mud homes where Afghans had been living in poverty. In Karachi, Afghans who have lived for generations in refugee camps have reported weeks of arbitrary arrests and extortion. Afghanistan’s Taliban government has urged Pakistan to give undocumented Afghans more time to leave.
More than 200,000 Afghan nationals have returned to their homeland, Pakistani officials said, adding that about 104,000 had left via Torkham in the last two weeks. Pakistan’s interior ministry claimed 140,322 have left through Chaman.