More than 6,500 Afghan citizens crossed the border at Torkham on Sunday, bringing the total number of returned Afghans to above 170,000, according to a report released by border authorities on Monday.
The administration gave unregistered foreign people until November 1 to comply with the legislation, at which point this voluntary evacuation operation got underway. A total of 174,358 Afghan nationals have returned home to Afghanistan since September 17. The number of voluntary repatriations has been steadily decreasing even if it is still happening.
Since the deadline passed, fewer illegal immigrants were present at the border crossing, according to an official participating in the repatriation process.
6,584 Afghan citizens, including women and children, left Pakistan on Sunday. In addition, deportations have occurred; in recent days, thousands of men, women, and children have been deported back, along with 209 deportees who were transported from different jails in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
In addition to voluntary repatriation, Afghan nationals convicted of lesser crimes have also been deported; between November 1 and 4, more than 500 convicts from various locations were sent home.
Moreover, over seven hundred Afghan nationals left via the Chaman border on Saturday. According to Jan Achakzai, the acting minister of information, almost 54,000 Afghans have already left their country and returned.
The government has pledged to pay for Afghan families’ return costs. International human rights groups, however, have denounced Pakistan’s expulsion of millions of unauthorized migrants, drawing attention to the difficulties Afghans returning home have, such as a shortage of food, clothing, clean water to drink, and sanitary conditions.
Arshad Malik, country director for Save the Children, voiced worries about people returning without proper documentation and linguistic hurdles, which might result in child labor and smuggling because of the increasing poverty.
In a letter to UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi, Chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), Hina Jilani, expressed worry that Pakistan’s decision would lead to a humanitarian catastrophe that would hurt vulnerable refugees and asylum seekers in particular.
Comparably, in a letter to Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti, the National Commission on the Status of Women brought attention to the predicament of roughly 2.5 million widows in Afghanistan, including those who work as journalists, doctors, or software engineers but lack documentation for a variety of reasons.
