More than 200,000 Afghans have left Pakistan since the government began a renewed deportation drive in April. According to media reports more than 135,000 Afghans left Pakistan in April, while the number dropped to 67,000 in May and more than 3,000 were sent back in the first two days of June, according to the ministry.  Millions of Afghans have poured into Pakistan over the past several decades, fleeing successive wars.

Hundreds of thousands have come since the return of the Taliban government in 2021.  But over one million Afghans have left Pakistan since Islamabad launched its repatriation program in 2023, the ministry added.  The UN’s International Organization for Migration on Tuesday voiced concern over a surge in Afghan families being deported from Iran, recording 15,675 crossing in May, a more than two-fold increase from the previous month. 

The influx across both borders threatens to strain Afghanistan’s already “fragile reception and reintegration systems”, IOM said in a statement.  Pakistan’s Ministry of Interior asked Afghan Citizen Card (ACC) holders, staying in Pakistan, to leave the country by March 31.  The Afghan nationals will be deported from April 1, the ministry said in a statement.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan (INP)