KABUL: The Taleban government condemned on Tuesday the “violence” used by Pakistan in its new campaign to expel Afghans from the country, accusing Islamabad of using the migrants for “political goals”. Islamabad cancelled the residence permits of hundreds of thousands of Afghans in Pakistan, including many who were born or living for decades there, as part of a deportation program. “The mistreatment of them (Afghans) by neighboring countries is unacceptable and intolerable,” the Taleban Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation said on X, calling for a joint agreement to facilitate repatriations. An average of 4,000 Afghans crossed the border from Pakistan on Sunday and Monday, “far higher than the March daily average of just 77”, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) told AFP. The new phase in Pakistan’s campaign to repatriate Afghans “could affect up to 1.6 million undocumented Afghan migrants and Afghan Citizen Card (ACC) holders during 2025”, the agency said.

The UN says nearly three million Afghans live in Pakistan: 800,000 had their Pakistani ACC residency cards cancelled in April and 1.3 million still have residence permits until June 30 because they are registered with the UN refugees agency UNHCR. Others have no papers. “It is with great regret that Afghan refugees are being subjected to violence,” the Taleban refugees ministry said. “All refugees should be allowed to take their wealth, belongings, and household goods with them to their own country,” it added.

Afghans crossing the border have told AFP in recent days that they left without being able to take all their belongings or money, while others are rounded up and taken directly to the border. Human rights activists have for months been reporting harassment and extortion by Pakistani security forces against Afghans. Moniza Kakar, a lawyer in Pakistan’s largest city Karachi, said, “(Officials) are picking and arresting people randomly, from different places. There is no proper mechanism to shift the whole family,” she told AFP.

Relations between Kabul and Islamabad have soured since the Taleban takeover, fueled by a sharp rise in violence in Pakistan along the Afghan border. “No one should use refugees as tools for their political goals,” the Afghan refugees ministry added. Pakistan authorities did not provide immediate comment when contacted by AFP. “My only crime is that I’m Afghan,” Shah Mahmood, who was born in northern Afghanistan, told AFP on Monday after crossing the Torkham border point. “I had papers and they ripped them up.” In September 2023, hundreds of thousands of undocumented Afghans poured across the border into Afghanistan in the days leading up to a deadline to leave, after weeks of police raids. More than 800,000 Afghans by the end of 2024, according to UN figures. — AFP