More than 450,000 Afghans have fled Pakistan, and authorities continue to arrest and deport more. Photo: FAROOQ NAIEM/AFP
Pakistan's prime minister cited Britain's Rwanda plan to defend his deportation of millions of Afghans from the country.
Writing in The Telegraph, Anwaar-ul-Huq Kakar, Pakistan's caretaker prime minister, said that governments around the world were «adapting to a new era of mass migration» and that «the UK government's plan to deport illegal immigrants to Rwanda is a sign of this pressure.”
In October, Islamabad ordered all foreign nationals living in the country to leave the country illegally by November, a decree that particularly affects Afghans.
The South Asian country is estimated to be home to about three million Afghans refugees and migrants, including at least 600,000 who have fled persecution since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021.
An estimated 1.7 million undocumented Afghan migrants in Pakistan are affected by these measures. Photo: SAMIULLA POPAL/Shutterstock
More than 450,000 Afghans have already fled Pakistan, and authorities have begun arresting and deporting those who have not. . Thousands more went underground, fearing for their lives if they returned to their homeland.
The UK's Rwanda asylum plan, which was ruled illegal over fears of harm to refugees, would send asylum seekers to Rwanda for processing in a bid to deter people coming to the UK.
Mr Kakar said: » France is facing difficult times, while Italy has expressed fears it could become «Europe's refugee camp» and «Germany is also feeling the strain, prompting the announcement of tough new deportation measures.» He added that the situation in the United States is “no easier.”
According to him, Pakistan's problem is on a «completely different scale.» “Four to five million migrants (roughly the population of Ireland) have arrived in the last three to four decades. Many have no right to stay.»
The country's provisional government cited Afghan involvement in suicide bombings as one of the reasons for its move and said those working in the black market were «lowering wages for legitimate workers.» .
Mr Kakar also said the West needed to take more responsibility for Afghan refugees from the Taliban. He said more than 40,000 people in Pakistan were awaiting evacuation to the West.
About 200 members of Afghan special forces trained and funded by Britain are facing deportation from Pakistan back into Taliban hands. General Sir Richard Barrons, who served in the British Army in Afghanistan for more than 12 years, told the BBC that the failure to redeploy troops was «a disgrace because it reflects that we are either duplicitous as a nation, or incompetent.”
Islamabad's decision was met with condemnation from international organizations and refugee agencies fearing for the safety of those returning to the Taliban-ruled country.
The Taliban called the policy «cruel and barbaric.»
< img src="/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/d924a2f0aa04fa5ef24507e84c5808f9.jpg" /> Mr Kakar called international criticism of the policy «predictable»; Photo: SAMIULLA POPAL/Shutterstock
Shahid, a 35-year-old former Afghan government official, told the Telegraph last month that while he has a visa to stay in Pakistan, his wife and children do not and now face deportation.
Mr Shahid remains trapped — unable to return to his homeland for fear of persecution, and now also unable to leave his home in Pakistan. “They [Taliban] threatened to kill me; they have already killed my friend. They call me a slave of foreigners,” Shahid said. “We don’t leave the house at all and locked ourselves indoors.”
Lawyers and activists said the scale of the crackdown was unprecedented. The Home Ministry has set up a hotline urging Pakistanis to report any «illegal foreigners» living in their area as police search refugee settlements door-to-door. Large numbers of undocumented Afghans were transported directly to the border.
In his comments, Mr Kakar called international criticism of the policy «predictable», saying that «in any such program there will always be a small number of particularly difficult cases.» .
He said Pakistan had established 79 transit centers and provided free food and shelter to those returning to Afghanistan.
Speaking of Afghans fearing persecution by the Taliban, he added: “We are reassured by strong tribal and regional ties between those repatriating and the authorities in Kabul and Kandahar.»
He also insisted that Pakistan «will continue to fulfill its legal, moral and humanitarian obligations.»
Pakistan will hold elections on February 8. Imran Khan, the former prime minister, was jailed after saying the military was behind his removal from power.
Pakistan's powerful military has long objected to the presence of millions of Afghans living inside the country. viewing them as a security threat.
In his first year in power, in 2018, Mr Khan offered all Afghans living in Pakistan a path to full citizenship before reportedly refusing him under pressure from the military.< /p>
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