ISLAMABAD — Pakistan pushed back sharply against United Nations appeals on Friday, insisting it will press ahead with mass deportations of Afghan refugees despite a devastating earthquake across the border.
“Any people with no documentation should leave,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Shafqat Ali Khan told reporters. “It is our territory — we decide who stays in.”
The defiant stance followed a plea from Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, who urged Pakistan to pause its Illegal Foreigners Repatriation Plan after a weekend quake killed more than 2,200 people and leveled villages in eastern Afghanistan.
But Islamabad, citing rising insurgent attacks and security concerns, has doubled down on expulsions. Pakistan has hosted Afghans for more than four decades, from those fleeing the Soviet invasion in the 1980s to families escaping the Taliban takeover in 2021. Yet the government’s crackdown, launched in 2023, now paints undocumented Afghans as “terrorists and criminals.”
The toll has been staggering. More than 1.2 million Afghans have been forced back since the campaign began, including 443,000 this year alone, according to the UN. Many of those returned now live in quake-hit border districts, with the World Health Organization estimating some 270,000 recent returnees in the worst-affected areas.
Even Afghans awaiting relocation to Germany reported police raids on guesthouses where they had been told to wait for months as cases were processed. Families born and raised in Pakistan, who have known no other home, also face deportation.
The latest phase of the crackdown targets 1.3 million refugees holding UN-issued Proof of Registration (PoR) cards. Islamabad has set a September 1 deadline for their departure, warning they will otherwise face arrest and forcible return.
For Afghans already reeling from displacement, violence, and natural disaster, Pakistan’s deadline now looms as yet another blow.
