Pakistan: KP CM voices concern over forced deportation of Afghan refugees

As per media reports, 800,000 Afghan refugees have returned from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

“The repatriation process is being accelerated, but no refugee should be forcibly expelled. We will return them with dignity because they have spent many years here and deserve to be treated with respect," the CM was quoted as saying by Tolo News.

Muzzammil Aslam, Senior Advisor to the Chief Minister, told the news agency: “We made our position clear that the majority of the refugees are in our province, numbering in the hundreds of thousands. Your policy is a federal one and is being implemented, but you cannot send them back overnight. The land they are residing on belongs both to the provincial and federal governments.”

Meanwhile, Afghan refugees are saying they are facing pressure from the government and the police, making their lives in the country difficult.

Pakistan has been housing Afghan refugees for several years now.

Shabana, an Afghan refugee in Pakistan, told Tolo News: “There is immense pressure from the government and police on the refugees. They are forcibly arrested, police raid their homes, or shut down their shops to compel them to leave Pakistan.”

Meanwhile, Pakistani authorities have demolished more than 1,000 houses that were vacated by Afghan refugees in the United Nations-designated Afghan Camp in Sohrab Goth, Karachi, in the past few days, media reports said.

SSP-West Tariq Illahi Mastoi told Dawn that since the start of an operation from Oct 15, around 1,200 houses, out of over 3,000, had been demolished.

He told the newspaper that 14,000 Afghans have already left the camps.