Thousands of Afghan refugees and migrants are heading for the border to return to Pakistan, a day before a deadline set by the government expires. Al Jazeera reported this news on Tuesday.
At the beginning of this month, the interior minister of Pakistan’s interim government, Sarfaraz Bugti, set a deadline of October 31, saying that refugees and immigrants must leave the country within this period.
The government of Pakistan says that more than 4 million foreigners live in Pakistan. A large part of these are Afghan nationals, who came to Pakistan seeking refuge after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Most recently, since the Taliban seized power in 2021, Pakistani officials say between 6 and 8 million Afghans have taken refuge in Pakistan.
The Pakistani government claims that about 1.7 million Afghan citizens are undocumented.
Around 100,000 Afghan migrants have voluntarily returned home this month through the Chaman crossing in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, local media said on Tuesday.
Bugti said at a press conference last Monday that the majority of undocumented people are from Afghanistan and that only people from Afghanistan are being evicted, which is wrong.
