The embassy says Afghan nationals face pressured relocations in Islamabad amid rising tensions between the neighbours.
The Afghanistan embassy in Pakistan has warned that the federal government needs to take away all Afghan refugees from the capital, Islamabad, and the adjoining metropolis of Rawalpindi.
The embassy issued a strongly worded assertion on Wednesday, saying Afghan nationals in each cities have been subjected to arrests, searches and orders from the police to depart and relocate to different components of Pakistan.
The warning comes as the connection between the 2 nations continues to deteriorate, with Islamabad accusing Kabul of failing to curb cross-border assaults.
“This technique of detaining Afghans, which started with none formal announcement, has not been formally communicated to the Embassy of Afghanistan in Islamabad by any formal correspondence,” the embassy mentioned.
“In the end, officers from Pakistan’s Ministry of International Affairs confirmed that there’s a definitive and ultimate plan to deport/take away all Afghan refugees not solely from Islamabad and Rawalpindi but in addition from all the nation within the close to future,” it added.
Final yr, Pakistan introduced that unlawful Afghan refugees wouldn’t be allowed to reside in Islamabad and Rawalpindi. The Islamabad administration made this announcement after claiming that the Afghan refugees took half within the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) social gathering’s protest rally held within the capital in November final yr.
In November 2023, Pakistan launched a extensively criticised repatriation programme geared toward returning hundreds of thousands of Afghans, no matter their authorized standing.
Pakistan presently hosts almost greater than 2.5 million Afghans, in keeping with authorities estimates. About half of them are registered with the United Nations Excessive Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Authorities say these registered earlier had their keep prolonged till June 2025, and they’d not be arrested or deported not less than till the extension expires.
Final month, in a two-page doc issued by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s workplace, the federal government outlined a three-phase plan to ship again Afghan residents to their nation.
The Afghan embassy mentioned it had already “expressed severe issues” concerning the “mass expulsion of Afghan refugees inside such a brief timeframe and the unilateral nature of Pakistan’s determination”.
Pakistan has set March 31 because the deadline to expel Afghan refugees from Islamabad and Rawalpindi in preparation for his or her deportation if they aren’t relocated to the host nations that agreed to take them after the Taliban seized energy in 2021.
Previously three years, tens of 1000’s of Afghans have fled to Pakistan. Lots of them had been accepted for resettlement in america by a programme that helps individuals in danger due to their work with the US authorities, media, help companies and rights teams.
Nonetheless, US President Donald Trump paused refugee programmes final month. Since then, about 20,000 Afghans are actually in limbo in Pakistan.
