Afghanistan says Pakistan carrying out mass expulsion of refugees

Afghan refugees are facing arrests and harassment in Pakistan as part of a mass expulsion campaign, Kabul's embassy in Islamabad said on Wednesday, after the U.N.'s refugee agency said hundreds had been expelled from two cities.

Pakistan is in the midst of a huge drive to repatriate the roughly four million Afghans who crossed the border during 40 years of armed conflict in their home country and after the Taliban seized power in 2021.

The Afghan embassy in Islamabad said its nationals have recently been subjected to arrests, searches and orders from police to leave Pakistan's capital Islamabad and its twin garrison city of Rawalpindi to relocate to other parts of the country.

"This process of detaining Afghans, which began without any formal announcement, has not been officially communicated to the Embassy of Afghanistan," the embassy said in a statement.

Officials defend removal plan

Pakistan's foreign office denied harassing Afghan refugees, and said the removals were part of a 2023 campaign called the Illegal Foreigners Repatriation Plan.

"We expect interim Afghan authorities to create conducive conditions in Afghanistan, so that these returnees are fully integrated in the Afghan society," it said.

But the Afghan embassy said it was told by Pakistani authorities that Islamabad plans to deport all Afghan nationals in the near future.

"The embassy of Afghanistan in Islamabad has expressed serious concerns in meetings with Pakistani authorities and international organizations regarding the mass expulsion," it said.

It added that Pakistani authorities had said only valid visa holders will be allowed to remain in Islamabad and Rawalpindi.

US resettlement program endangered

The latest removals come as the U.S. State Department office overseeing the resettlement of Afghans in the United States was told to make plans to close by April, according to a U.S. official, an advocate and two sources familiar with the directive.

The move could deny up to an estimated 200,000 people new lives in the United States, many of whom are stranded in Pakistan.

A day after U.S. forces completed their troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, an Afghan boy waves from a bus taking refugees to a processing center, Virginia, U.S., September 1, 2021. Reuters

UNHCR, the U.N. Refugee Agency, said it had seen a rise in deportations from Islamabad and Rawalpindi since Jan 1.

"This latest relocation directive has increased fears of imminent deportation among Afghans," it said.