BBC World Service
BBCPakistan has deported more than 19,500 Afghans this quarter, among more than 80,000 who have left back of a 30 April date, according to the UN.
Pakistan has accelerated its drive to eliminate undocumented Afghans and those who had momentary permission to stay, saying it can no longer manage.
Between 700 and 800 people are being deported regularly, Taliban leaders say, with up to two million people expected to follow in the coming weeks.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar flew to Kabul on Saturday for speaks with Taliban authorities. His rival Amir Khan Muttaqi expressed “deep problem” about persecution.
Some expelled Afghans at the frontier said they had been born in Pakistan after their people fled issue.
More than 3. 5 million Afghans have been living in Pakistan, according to the UN’s immigrant organization, including around 700,000 people who came after the Taliban invasion in 2021. The UN estimates that quarter are undocumented.
Pakistan has taken in Afghans through decades of war, but the authorities says the great number of refugees then poses threats to national surveillance and causes strain on public services.
There has been a subsequent rise in border clashes between the security troops of both sides. Pakistan blames them on extremists based in Afghanistan, which the Taliban deny.
Pakistan’s foreign government said the two sides had “discussed all issues of mutual interest” in Saturday’s gathering in Kabul.
Pakistan had extended a deadline for illegal Afghans to leave the country by a quarter, to 30 April.
On the Torkham border passing, some expelled Afghans told the BBC they left Afghanistan decades ago- or had never lived there.
” I lived my entire life in Pakistan,” said Sayed Rahman, a second-generation migrant born and raised in Pakistan. ” I got married it. What am I supposed to do then? “
Saleh, a father of three sons, worried what living under Taliban rule may mean for them. His girls attended university in Pakistan’s Punjab state, but in Afghanistan, women over the age of 12 are barred from doing so.
” I want my children to study. I don’t like their years in school to go to waste,” he said. ” Everyone has the right to an education. “
Another person told the BBC:” Our kids have never seen Afghanistan and yet I don’t understand what it looks like again. It might take us a year or more to live in and get work. We feel vulnerable. “
At the frontier, men and women pass through individual walls, under the view of military Muslim and Afghan soldiers. Some of those returning were old – one man was carried across on a bed, another in a mattress.
Military vehicles shuttled people from the border to momentary shelters. Those previously from remote provinces stay there for several times, waiting for travel to their home regions.
People clustered under paintings to leave the 30C level warmth, as swirling sand caught in the eyes and mouth. Resources are stretched and fierce quarrels frequently break out over exposure to house.
Returnees receive between 4,000 and 10,000 Afghanis ( £41 to £104 ) from the Kabul authorities, according to Hedayatullah Yad Shinwari, a member of the camp’s Taliban-appointed finance committee.
The large imprisonment is placing considerable strain on Afghanistan’s unstable infrastructure, with an economy in problems and a community nearing 45 million people.
” We have resolved most problems, but the appearance of people in such large numbers inevitably brings issues,” said Bakht Jamal Gohar, the Taliban’s mind of immigrant matters at the cross. ” These people left decades ago and left all their belongings behind. Some of their homes were destroyed during 20 years of war. “
Almost every family told the BBC that Muslim border soldiers restricted what they could provide – a grievance echoed by some human rights groups.
Chaudhry said in reply that Pakistan did” not have any plan that prevents Afghan refugees from taking their family products with them”.
One person, sitting on the roads in the burning sun, said his youngsters had begged to stay in Pakistan, the land where they were born. They had been given momentary citizenship, but that expired in March.
” Then we’ll never get back. Never after how we were treated,” he said.
More reporting by Daniel Wittenberg and Mallory Moench
