Following the expiration of the deadline set by the Pakistani government for undocumented migrants to leave, the forced deportation and return of Afghan citizens has intensified, with between 400 and 600 families crossing into Afghanistan daily via the Torkham border. Islamabad has announced that previously issued documents allowing some Afghans to stay are no longer valid and that only holders of valid student, business, or tourist visas are permitted to remain in the country.<\/p>\n
According to reports, since October 2023, more than 2.5 million Afghan citizens have returned home as a result of this policy. Many of the returnees say they have spent their entire lives in Pakistan and are now returning to a homeland they barely know.<\/p>\n
Some families have stated that before leaving Pakistan, they sold their homes and businesses at low prices. Others report an increase in arrests and police operations in recent weeks, which they say accelerated their departure.<\/p>\n
The rising wave of returns has placed heavy pressure on Afghanistan’s limited resources. Reception centers in the eastern provinces are overcrowded, and aid organizations report a shortage of resources to meet the basic needs of returnees.<\/p>\n
While the Taliban administration is responsible for managing this process and facilitating housing and employment for returnees, no clear or comprehensive plan for the sustainable integration of this large population has yet been presented. Humanitarian agencies have warned that the continuation of this trend could further complicate the humanitarian situation in a country already grappling with economic challenges and widespread unemployment.<\/p>\n
These developments come amid ongoing political tensions between Kabul and Islamabad. Pakistani officials have repeatedly accused Afghanistan of failing to prevent militant group activities along the disputed border line, claims that Afghan authorities have denied.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Over 2.5 million Afghans have been forcibly returned from Pakistan since October 2023, straining resources amid political tensions between Kabul and Islamabad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17530,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-important-news","category-migrant-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}