South Asia

Afghans return to Taliban rule as Pakistan moves to expel 1.7m

Published: 15:06, 1 November 2023

As the November 1 deadline set by Pakistan for undocumented migrants to leave the country approached, Muhammad Rahim embarked on a bus journey from Karachi to the Afghan border. Rahim, a 35-year-old Afghan national, had spent his entire life in Pakistan, having been born there. He married a Pakistani woman and raised his children in the port city. However, he lacked Pakistani identity documents, making him vulnerable to expulsion.

The Taliban government in Afghanistan reported that approximately 60,000 Afghans had returned from Pakistan between September 23 and October 22, following Pakistan's announcement on October 4 that it would expel undocumented migrants who did not leave.
Recent daily returnee figures are significantly higher than usual, as revealed by Abdul Mutaleb Haqqani, a spokesman for the Taliban's refugee ministry, during a media briefing on October 26.
In the vicinity of Karachi's Sohrab Goth area, which houses one of Pakistan's largest Afghan settlements, a bus service operator named Azizullah mentioned that he had increased the number of services to accommodate the growing exodus. Nearby, lines formed at competing bus services bound for Afghanistan.
Azizullah explained, "Previously, I used to operate one bus a week, but now we have four to five departures per week." It's noteworthy that all Afghan migrants interviewed by the media requested to be identified by only their first names due to the sensitivity of the matter.
Pakistan is home to over 4 million Afghan migrants and refugees, with approximately 1.7 million of them lacking proper documentation, according to figures from Islamabad. Afghans constitute the largest group of migrants, with many arriving after the Taliban's return to power in Afghanistan in 2021, while a substantial number have been in Pakistan since the 1979 Soviet invasion.
The threat of expulsion arose in response to suicide bombings that occurred earlier in the year, which the Pakistani government, without providing concrete evidence, attributed to Afghans. Islamabad has also accused them of involvement in smuggling and other militant activities.