KABUL, Apr 15: Nearly 60,000 Afghans have been forced to leave Pakistan since the start of April, the International Organization for Migration said Tuesday, after Islamabad ramped up a campaign to deport migrants to Afghanistan.
Pakistan last month set an early April deadline for some 800,000 Afghans carrying Afghan Citizen Cards (ACC) issued by the Pakistani authorities to leave the country, in the second phase of efforts to remove Afghans.
"Between 1 and 13 April 2025, IOM recorded a sharp rise in forced returns, with nearly 60,000 individuals crossing back into Afghanistan through the Torkham and Spin Boldak border points," the UN agency said in a statement.
Families with their belongings in tow have crowded the crossings at Torkham in the north and Spin Boldak in the south, recalling scenes in 2023 when tens of thousands of Afghans fled deportation threats in Pakistan.
"With a new wave of large-scale returns now underway from Pakistan, needs on the ground are rising rapidly -- both at the border and in areas of return that are struggling to absorb large numbers of returnees," said Mihyung Park, head of the IOM's Afghanistan mission.
The UN says nearly three million Afghans live in Pakistan, many having been there for decades, after fleeing successive conflicts in their country and following the Taliban's return to power in Kabul in 2021.
Meanwhile, more than 10 percent of the Afghan population could be deprived of healthcare by the end of the year due to the termination of US aid, the World Health Organization warned Tuesday.
Afghanistan, with a population of 45 million that has long been dependent on aid, faces the world's second-largest humanitarian crisis.
Since US funding cuts earlier this year, about three million people have lost access to health services because of the closure of more than 364 medical centres, with a further 220 centres at risk of closing by the third quarter of 2025, the UN's health agency said. �"AFP
