The difficult situation and the escalation of the process of arresting Afghan refugees in Pakistan

28 Sep 2023
2 Minutes
The difficult situation and the escalation of the process of arresting Afghan refugees in Pakistan

After the recent developments in the last two years and the increase of humanitarian and economic crises in Afghanistan, millions of people for various reasons, including during the stages of refugee cases, rescue from unemployment, poverty and hunger, lack of education and the current ruling situation in the country,  More migrated to Pakistan than ever before.

These migrations continue to affect the situation in Pakistan and have caused Afghan refugees to face many problems in the neighboring country.

Meanwhile, Sardar Ahmad Shakib, the ambassador of the Taliban government in Islamabad, announced recently that in the last few weeks, 500 to 600 Afghan immigrants from the city of Karachi, Pakistan, and another 200 people from the cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi have been arrested for not having legal documents.  After examining the documents of the arrested, a number of them were released.

Mustafa Mohammadi, one of the Afghans living in Pakistan, says that many refugees in this country are facing no fate and wait for long months to receive legal documents, but they are not given an appointment to register with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

He says, “Afghans living here do not have legal documents, and it is because they are not registered with the United Nations in refugee affairs and they do not have the United Nations card with them, for this reason they cannot move easily in the cities and even with trouble from the police.  Pakistan are facing each other.  In some states, including Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, they are also facing harassment and harassment by the Pakistani police.

One of the other challenges of Afghans living in this country is the economic problems and the lack of work, which has made some immigrant families unable to send their children to school and university due to the payment of fees.

Mursal Rahimi is another Afghan citizen who immigrated to Pakistan for two years to process his asylum case.

She says: “It is not known when our refugee work will end, but the living conditions here are very difficult for us, we have many economic problems because it is not easy to find work in Pakistan.”  In terms of security, the conditions are very bad for Afghans, they arrest the immigrants and release them if we pay them right away, but if they are taken to prison, they release them after 20-40 days by taking more money, and there are no good facilities for the immigrants».

Meanwhile, two months ago, during a press conference, Soraya Sabir, the deputy of the Afghan Refugee Council in Islamabad, called the situation of Afghan refugees in Pakistan very worrying and asked the United Nations, human rights organizations, the government of Pakistan and other organizations that  They are working for the immigrants, they want to hear the voices of the immigrants in Pakistan.