RASC News Agency: Some Afghanistani refugees in Pakistan say they face an uncertain and bleak future, living in a state of limbo. They emphasize that neither Pakistan recognizes them as citizens nor does the Taliban acknowledge them as their own. Most of these refugees reside in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and are caught in uncertainty as Pakistan intensifies its crackdown on undocumented Afghanistani migrants. Many of them, whose families have lived in Pakistan for decades, claim they are neither accepted by the Pakistani government nor recognized as Afghanistani nationals by the Taliban administration.
The Pakistani newspaper Dawn has reported that Afghanistani refugees in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa oppose forced repatriation and are urging Pakistani authorities not to expel them. The report states that many of these refugees hold Pakistani national identity cards and belong to the third generation of Afghanistani migrants in the country. According to Dawn, the Taliban has refused to recognize these individuals as Afghanistani citizens. One refugee told the newspaper that they are not even able to return to Afghanistan for the funerals of their relatives.
He also claimed that many Afghanistani refugees in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa hold Pakistani electronic national identity cards and are engaged in business in major cities such as Islamabad, Karachi, and Peshawar. “It is unfair to impose a deadline for deportation and create difficulties for the refugees,” he added. Previously, the Pakistani military warned that Afghanistani refugees must leave the country within a month or face arrest and deportation. As of now, dozens of Afghanistani migrants are being detained and expelled from Pakistan on a daily basis.
