Pakistan Sets One Month Deadline for 1.4 Million Afghan Refugees

Pakistan has set one month deadline for 1.4 million Afghan refugees, who lost their legal residency status at the end of 2017, to leave the country.

Although, a one year extension for the stay of Afghan refugees was agreed between Kabul and Islamabad, but the move came after tense U.S.-Afghanistan relations with Pakistan over harboring terror groups.

The Ministry of Refugees and Repatriations on Friday said that under a trilateral agreement with Afghanistan and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Pakistan was supposed to consider a one-year extension in the validity of the Proof of Registration (PoR) cards for the refugees.

“Together with UNHCR, we will raise the issue with Pakistan to extend the stay of Afghan refugees for another one year,” said, Hafiz Ahmad Miakhail, a spokesman for the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriations.

At the same time, Kabul is urging Islamabad not to use Afghan refugees as a political tool, adding that the repatriation of 1.4 million refugees are not possible in the next one month.

In contrary with the international conventions, Pakistan has always increased pressures on Afghan refugees when the relations between the two countries were tense.