RASC News Agency: The Pakistani government’s intensifying campaign of forced expulsions against Afghanistani migrants has sparked growing concern among international human rights organizations, humanitarian agencies, and displaced families alike. Reports emerging from the southern border point to a disturbing surge in coercive deportations, marked by arbitrary arrests, systemic mistreatment, and mass displacement underscoring what experts warn could become one of the most neglected humanitarian emergencies in the region. According to official sources in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province, over 43,000 Afghanistani nationals have crossed back into the country through the Spin Boldak border crossing within the past month alone. This influx includes more than 8,150 families, alongside nearly 3,000 Afghanistani prisoners repatriated from Pakistani detention facilities. The abrupt return of such a large population has overwhelmed the already brittle capacity of local authorities and humanitarian actors operating in border districts.
Eyewitness accounts from the deportees paint a harrowing picture of widespread abuse. Many returnees report being forcibly removed from their homes with little warning, subjected to degrading treatment, and denied due legal process. Arbitrary detentions, physical intimidation, and psychological trauma have become disturbingly common features of the deportation process. Families recount being given mere hours to evacuate, often without the opportunity to gather belongings or secure basic resources, leaving women, children, and the elderly in especially vulnerable conditions. While humanitarian organizations on the ground including those working in Spin Boldak have mobilized emergency assistance in the form of cash transfers, food supplies, and non-food relief items, the scale of need far outpaces the resources available. Many returnees remain without adequate shelter, access to healthcare, or viable livelihood opportunities. Aid workers warn that the absence of coordinated international intervention could tip border provinces into deeper chaos, exacerbating food insecurity, unemployment, and internal displacement.
Global rights watchdogs, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have issued urgent appeals to Islamabad to halt the forced removals and to honor its obligations under international humanitarian and refugee law. These organizations stress that repatriation must be voluntary, dignified, and safe conditions that are glaringly absent in the current wave of expulsions. The forced return of Afghanistani refugees at a time when their country is reeling from economic collapse, violent repression under Taliban rule, and the near-total erosion of civil infrastructure, constitutes, they argue, a violation of international legal norms and an affront to human dignity. Currently, more than two million Afghanistani migrants reside in Pakistan, many of whom fled war, persecution, and economic devastation over the past two decades. Analysts caution that Pakistan’s indiscriminate deportation campaign, driven by political expediency rather than humanitarian principle, risks destabilizing Afghanistan even further. Kabul’s interim authorities operating under the constraints of Taliban rule have repeatedly acknowledged that the country lacks the capacity, funding, and institutional mechanisms to absorb such a massive influx of returnees.
The situation is further compounded by the Taliban’s deliberate exclusion of women from public service and the workforce, which has devastated family incomes and undermined community resilience. As thousands of returnees arrive in a country where foreign aid is rapidly shrinking, employment opportunities are virtually nonexistent, and social services have collapsed under authoritarian rule, the likelihood of widespread destitution grows by the day. In the face of this looming crisis, the international community remains largely silent. While humanitarian appeals have been issued, concrete political and logistical responses remain painfully insufficient. If urgent and coordinated global action is not taken, the current expulsion campaign may evolve into a long-term humanitarian disaster one in which Afghanistani refugees are treated not as victims of geopolitics, but as disposable populations in a region increasingly hostile to the displaced.
The fate of these vulnerable communities now hinges not only on the actions of Islamabad and Kabul but on whether the world will uphold its moral and legal responsibilities or allow yet another human tragedy to unfold in silence.
