Pakistan’s Special Envoy for Afghanistan has revealed that the international community has resettled just 86,000 of the approximately 800,000 Afghans who entered Pakistan following the Taliban’s return to power in 2021.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Mohammad Sadiq said he discussed Pakistan’s ongoing efforts to facilitate the return of Afghan nationals with the Deputy High Commissioner of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR).
Following the collapse of the Western-backed Afghan government, hundreds of thousands of Afghans particularly former civil servants, military personnel, and those associated with foreign missions fled to neighbouring countries such as Pakistan and Iran amid fears of Taliban reprisals.
Nearly four years on, both Pakistan and Iran have ramped up the deportation of Afghan migrants. Over the past year alone, the two countries have expelled an estimated two million Afghans.
While deportations from Pakistan, Iran, and Tajikistan continue to accelerate, resettlement efforts by Western countries have slowed considerably. On Tuesday, Germany’s Foreign Ministry announced a temporary suspension of its Afghan resettlement programme until the formation of a new government.
Meanwhile, under the Trump administration, some Afghan asylum seekers were deported from the United States, a move that has raised alarm among Afghan communities abroad.
Refugee advocacy groups have warned that deported Afghans face the risk of harassment, detention, or persecution by the Taliban. Both the Taliban authorities and the United Nations have repeatedly urged Afghanistan’s neighbours to stop the forced return of Afghan nationals, but these calls have thus far gone largely unheeded.
