Pakistan’s Punjab to send home 20 more Afghans in repatriation drive

Pakistan’s Punjab province was set to repatriate 20 Afghan citizens to their homeland on Thursday as it continued its drive against undocumented Afghan nationals, a Punjab Home Department spokesperson said.

The nationwide repatriation campaign, launched in late 2023, has strained relations between neighbours Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The policy has drawn criticism from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which has said it has received reports of arrests and expulsions of legally registered Afghans and warned that sending them back in this way breaches Pakistan’s international obligations.

According to a Punjab Home Department statement, official statistics show that more than 2 million Afghan citizens have been sent back from across Pakistan. “In Punjab alone, over 150,000 undocumented Afghans have been repatriated,” the statement said, Reuters reported.

It added that all Afghan citizens without a valid visa are required to leave, while those with valid visas may continue to work or run businesses.

Punjab is currently operating 37 holding centres accommodating 69 Afghan nationals, 20 of whom were scheduled for repatriation on Thursday, the spokesperson said.

Tensions between the two countries remain high. Pakistan accuses Afghanistan of failing to act against what it says are terror networks operating from Afghan soil. Afghanistan denies the allegations.

On Wednesday, Pakistan summoned the Afghan deputy head of mission to raise concerns about a February 16 attack on security forces in Bajaur in northwest Pakistan that killed 11 Pakistani soldiers and a child.

Last year, the two sides were engaged in their heaviest clashes since the IEA returned to power in 2021, though a fragile ceasefire has held since the deadly October fighting.

Afghanistan last week freed three Pakistani soldiers, detained in the October 12 clashes, handing them over to a Saudi delegation in Kabul.