Afghans in droves head to border to leave Pakistan ahead of a deadline in anti-migrant crackdown

PESHAWAR, Oct 31: Large numbers of Afghans crammed into trucks and buses in Pakistan on Tuesday, heading to the border to return home ahead of the expiration of a Pakistani government deadline for those who are in the country illegally to leave or face deportation.

The deadline is part of a new anti-migrant crackdown that targets all undocumented or unregistered foreigners, according to Islamabad. But it mostly affects Afghans, who make up the bulk of migrants in Pakistan.

The expulsion campaign has drawn widespread criticism from U.N. agencies, rights groups and the Taliban-led administration in Afghanistan.
Pakistani officials warn that people who are in the country illegally face arrest and deportation after Oct. 31. U.N. agencies say there are more than 2 million undocumented Afghans in Pakistan, at least 600,000 of whom fled after the Taliban takeover in 2021.

Human Right Watch on Tuesday accused Pakistan of resorting to "threats, abuse, and detention to coerce Afghan asylum seekers without legal status" to return to Afghanistan. The New York-based watchdog appealed for authorities to drop the deadline and work with the U.N. refugee agency to register those without papers.

Although the government insists it isn't targeting Afghans, the campaign comes amid strained relations between Pakistan and the Taliban rulers next door.

Islamabad accuses Kabul of turning a blind eye to Taliban-allied militants who find shelter in Afghanistan, from where they go back and forth across the two countries' shared 2,611-kilometer (1,622-mile) border to stage attacks in Pakistan. The Taliban deny the accusations.

"My father came to Pakistan 40 years ago," said 52-year-old Mohammad Amin, speaking in Peshawar, the capital of the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province that borders Afghanistan.

"He died here. My mother also died here and their graves are in Pakistan," said Amin, originally from Afghanistan's eastern Nangarhar province. "We are going back today as we never tried to register ourselves as refugees with the U.N. refugee agency."

"I am going back with good memories," he told The Associated Press, adding he planned to head to the Torkham border crossing later Tuesday and that he'd asked the Taliban government for help to start a new life.

As the clock ticked down to the Nov. 1 deadline Pakistan set for undocumented migrants to leave the country, Muhammad Rahim boarded a bus from Karachi to the Afghan  border.

"We'd live here our whole life if they didn't send us back," said the 35-year-old Afghan national, who was born in Pakistan, married a Pakistani woman and raised his Pakistan-born children in the port city - but has no Pakistani identity documents.

The Taliban government in Afghanistan said some 60,000 Afghans returned between Sept 23 to Oct 22 from Pakistan, which announced on Oct 4 it will expel undocumented migrants that do not leave.    �AP, REUTERS