Afghans fleeing Pakistan to avoid arrest and deportation are sleeping in the open, without proper shelter, food, drinking water and toilets once they cross the border to their homeland, aid agencies said.
Hundreds of thousands of Afghans have left Pakistan in recent weeks as authorities pursue foreigners they say are in the country irregularly, going door-to-door to check migrants’ documentation.
Afghans leave Pakistan from two main border crossings, Torkham and Chaman. The ruling Taliban has set up camps on the other side for people to stay in while they wait to be moved to their place of origin in Afghanistan. Aid agencies said Torkham has no proper shelter.
There is limited access to drinking water, no heating source other than open fires, no lighting, and no toilets. There is open defecation and poor hygiene. UN agencies and aid groups are setting up facilities with thousands of people entering Afghanistan every day.
Kayal Mohammad lived in the northwest Pakistani city of Peshawar for 17 years. He has five children and was deported to the Afghan border almost a week ago.
He said that he was not allowed to take any household belongings with him. Everything he and his family own remains in Pakistan. His seven-year-old daughter Hawa weeps because she is cold. She drinks tea for breakfast from a cut-up plastic bottle and sleeps without a blanket.
Her father urged the international community for help. “We cannot ask the Taliban government,” he said. “They have nothing because they are yet to be recognised as a government. There are families who have nothing here, no land, no home. They are just living under the open sky. No one is helping.”
A huge number of Afghan refugees entered the Torkham border hours before the expiration of a Pakistani government deadline for those who are in the country irregularly to leave or face deportation. [Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo]Thamindri Da Silva, from the relief and development organisation World Vision, said most people are moved to a dry riverbed once they have gone through their initial registration and processing at a transit centre. People enter Afghanistan with just the clothes on their back because their watches, jewellery and cash were taken at the Pakistani border, she added. [Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo]Arshad Malik, country director for Save the Children International, said many of those returning are coming back without education documents, making it difficult for them to continue their learning, as well as lacking the local Afghan languages of Dari and Pashto because they studied Urdu and English in Pakistan. [Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo]Malik also warned that child labour in Afghanistan as well as their involvement in smuggling are likely to increase due to poverty as most returning families were among the poorest people in Pakistan. [Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo]‘Smuggling at Torkham by children was one of the concerns from the past, so the involvement of children in smuggling and illegal goods’ transfer will increase,’ Malik said. [Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo]The Taliban says it has committees working ‘around the clock’ to help Afghans by distributing food, water and blankets. [Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo]Afghanistan is overwhelmed by challenges, compounded by the isolation of the Taliban-led government by the international community. [Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo]Years of drought, a beleaguered economy and the aftermath of decades of war have led to the internal displacement of millions of Afghans. [Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo]Concerns have risen among the humanitarian community about the impoverished country being unable to support or integrate those currently forced to leave Pakistan. [Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo]In the late 1970s and 80s, tens of thousands of Afghans fled to Pakistan after the Soviet invasion of the country, and more came after the United States invaded Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks. [Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo]More recently, between 600,000 and 800,000 Afghans are believed to have arrived in Pakistan after the Taliban assumed power in 2021. [Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo]According to the Pakistani government, there were about 4 million foreigners in the country before October 31, nearly 3.8 million of them Afghans. Of those, it says, only 2.2 million Afghans carry a government-approved document that makes them eligible to stay. [Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo]Pakistan blames Afghan fighters and migrants for a surge in armed attacks inside the country in recent years.
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