Over 317,000 Afghan Immigrants Return To Afghanistan, Says Pakistan
The government of Pakistan announced that 317,225 Afghan immigrants have returned to Afghanistan from Pakistan.
The government of Pakistan announced that 317,225 Afghan immigrants have returned to Afghanistan from Pakistan.
According to the Pakistani government, 212,225 people entered Afghanistan from the Torkham crossing and 105,000 from the Chaman border crossing.
The process of forced deportation of Afghan immigrants without residency documents from Pakistan continues, despite the criticism of international organisations.
Bilal Karimi, the Taliban’s Deputy Spokesperson, said that over the last two weeks, 12,430 refugee families, including 73,208 people, have returned to the country through Spin Boldak border crossing.
Pakistan ordered immigrants without official residency documents to leave the country voluntarily until November 1. After the deadline, Pakistan's Ministry of Interior started a door-to-door search operation to identify and arrest Afghan immigrants without official documents.
At the same time, Jan Achakzai, the Minister of Information of the Baluchistan province of Pakistan, has once again announced that Afghans can enter Pakistan only with passports and visas. Before this, Afghan travellers could cross the border and enter Pakistan with a national identity card too.
On Wednesday, Amnesty International criticised the behaviour of the Pakistani police towards Afghan immigrants and demanded their release from the detention centers, and urged Pakistan to stop arbitrary detentions of these immigrants. The human rights group said that the mass deportation of Afghans from Pakistan deprives many of them of access to their basic rights.
