The government issued a deadline on November 1st for 1.7 million undocumented individuals to leave the nation or risk deportation, approximately 129,000 illegal immigrants have returned to Afghanistan from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
illegal immigrants return Afghanistan from KP: The data indicates that 589 people have passed through Angoor Ada and 128,629 have crossed Torkham, the two border gates that separate Pakistan and Afghanistan.
A day after the deadline for undocumented foreigners to depart or face expulsion passed, thousands of individuals swarmed the northwest border crossing, hoping to enter Afghanistan.
The crackdown on undocumented immigrants began on Friday. Irfanullah Mehsud, the Additional Secretary for the Home Department, claims that the government has information on approximately 52,000 unauthorised migrants.
“Individuals undergo registration, verification, and receive a departure stamp from the Federal Investigation Agency before being returned to holding centers at Pakistan’s borders, which are managed by the National Database and Registration Authority.” An interim government now governs Pakistan.
Reports of any KP police arrests were nonexistent.
In the meantime, mosques in Peshawar made announcements on undocumented immigrants. They encouraged those without documentation to depart on their own volition because the authorities planned to crack down on them beyond the deadline.
The return of refugees will proceed as scheduled, caretaker Interior Minister Sarfaraz Bugti said Afghan Chargé d’affaires Ahmed Shakeeb earlier in the day. Authorities have been instructed to treat the returning refugees “respectfully.”
However, human rights activist Fatima Atif claimed to Aaj News on Wednesday that police were invading the homes of Afghan refugees and forcibly returning them to their nation.
The magnitude of the migration has overwhelmed Afghan authorities, who are finding it difficult to deal with the people who are returning—some of whom are visiting Afghanistan for the first time in their lives.
“We are in constant communication with the Pakistani authorities, requesting an extension of time.” Khalil Haqqani, the minister of refugees for the Taliban government, informed AFP that they must allow people to return with dignity.
“They ought not to mistreat Afghans, nor create new adversaries,” he declared at a makeshift processing facility that opened late on Wednesday.
Thousands of people left Afghanistan during the decades-long conflict that began in the late 1970s, and more people left after the Taliban took control of the country following the US pullout in 2021.
Aid organisations raised “grave concerns” regarding the survival and reintegration of the returnees, especially with the approach of winter, and cautioned that the large-scale migration could plunge Afghanistan into yet another crisis.
After the Taliban took power and put restrictions on women, foreign aid funding for the nation stopped.