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Thousands of Afghan refugees are waiting at the border to return to their home country from Pakistan

Photo: BILAWAL ARBAB / EPA

Under the pressure of a threatened mass deportation, thousands of Afghan refugees have left Pakistan for their homeland. "More than 10,000 Afghans crossed the border yesterday and we expect another 25,000 to follow today," a representative of Pakistan's refugee agency told the dpa news agency on Wednesday. 50 trucks full of people were waiting to cross the border in Torkham, where one of the main border crossings between the two countries is located, according to a border official. On normal days, up to 5000,<> people pass through the Torkham border crossing, according to authorities, but in both directions.

"We started arresting illegal migrants"

The Pakistani government recently announced that it would deport asylum seekers without residence status if they did not voluntarily leave the country by the end of October. The measure is apparently aimed at people from neighbouring Afghanistan, which is dominated by the Islamist Taliban, and who make up the largest proportion of irregular migrants in Pakistan. According to government figures, about 4.4 million Afghan refugees live in the country, 1.7 million of them without valid papers. Since the announcement began, more than 100,000 Afghans have already left the country, according to authorities.

"We have started arresting illegal migrants," a police spokesman from Karachi in southern Pakistan told dpa on Wednesday. Deportation centres have been set up in various parts of the country to house refugees without residence permits before deportation, Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti said on Tuesday at the end of the deadline.

Human Rights Watch on Tuesday criticized the authorities' treatment of Afghan refugees without residence status. They are pressured to return to Afghanistan through threats, abuse and arrests. The human rights organization pointed out that from this Wednesday onwards, Afghans who were waiting in Pakistan for onward travel to the USA, Great Britain, Germany or Canada are now also threatened with deportation. According to Pakistani authorities, Britain had flown Afghans out of the country before the deadline.

mrc/dpa