KP hosts most of over 2.1m Afghan refugees

PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa hosts the huge majority of the Afghan nationals, who have been recently asked to leave Pakistan before March 31.

Pakistan is currently hosting 2.1 million documented Afghans.

Besides, there were hundreds of thousands of undocumented Afghan nationals living in Pakistan for decades. However, a majority of them returned to their country under a voluntary repatriation plan in 2023.

“Out of the total 2.1 million, 1.3 million Afghan refugees are those who have obtained Proof of Registration Cards. Over 52 percent of them are in KP,” the spokesman for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) Qasier Afridi told The News.

He added that there were around 800,000 Afghans, who had obtained ACC cards and majority of them were living in KP.

The PoR card holders were registered with the support of UNHCR in 2006 while ACC card holders were documented in 2017 after the National Action Plan was launched.

Pakistan has been hosting millions of Afghans for around five decades. Hundreds of thousands of them returned to their country in the last few years but still over 2.1 million are living in KP and other provinces.

The Pakistani authorities have set March 31 as the deadline for all the illegal Afghans as well as those who possessed ACC cards to return to their country.

There are tens of thousands of Afghans, who were born in Pakistan and hardly went to their homeland in their entire life.

A large number of them are once again concerned as the deadline approaches fast during the holy month.

Peshawar hosts the highest number of Afghan nationals than any other city. Thousands of them are doing their own businesses while others have been doing jobs in the city for the last many decades. They are living in many urban, suburban and rural areas along with the local populace.

In 2023, the government had set October 31 as a deadline only for the unregistered foreigners after which a large number of such undocumented Afghans returned to their homeland via Torkham and other border crossings.

Special camps were set up in Chamkani, Nowshera and other districts of the country for those returning to Afghanistan voluntarily.

No action was taken during the previous drive against Afghans, who possessed POR or ACC cards as well as valid visas. Also, the government had stopped authorities from moving against those, whose cases were under process with UNHCR and they were planning to leave for a third country due to serious threat to their lives in Afghanistan.