Pakistan increases pressure on Afghans in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to leave

Afghan residents in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa border province packed belongings this week or hid at home as police carried out what a senior officer called a large-scale crackdown on undocumented residents.

Authorities in the northern province demolished housing, set up roadside identity checks and told Afghans to leave as part of a wider government pushback, community members and officials said.

Residents of Mattani, near the provincial capital Peshawar, said authorities had demolished many of the Afghan settlement's 200 houses in July. Najeeb Rehman, 50, said he tried first to collect his father's medication and his children's school certificates from his home, but officers did not listen. In the remains of the settlement, many home walls were rubble, while young men loaded beds, solar panels and other household belongings into trucks to cross the border.

Pakistan's interior ministry ordered law enforcement agencies nationwide in June to arrest Afghan citizens without visas from July 10. The ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the demolitions.

A senior police officer in Peshawar, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a large-scale crackdown against undocumented Afghan nationals began on July 10 and was continuing. The officer said police had mapped Afghan nationals across the province even before the federal government issued clear directives.

Police and officials said Afghan residents had been warned before July 10 that they had to leave, including through mosque loudspeakers and meetings with community elders. Some residents said they had few options. Ahmad Mula, 70, whose home in Mattani was demolished, said police did not consider people's circumstances, money or health. He said police had made announcements at least 20 times, but that residents had their own hardships.

The crackdown adds to a repatriation policy that UN figures show has pushed back 2.3 million Afghans, including people who had lived in Pakistan for decades and people who fled Afghanistan after the Taliban returned to power in 2021. UN data showed almost 6,200 Afghans returned from Pakistan in the seven days to July 11, about one-third more than in the previous week. Pakistan remains home to more than one million Afghans, according to the UN.

An AFP reporter in Peshawar this week saw police set up temporary checkpoints across the city, where officers checked identity documents. An officer at one checkpoint said police had received strict instructions to arrest undocumented Afghan nationals.

In Peshawar's Board Bazaar market, known as Mini Kabul and home to thousands of Afghan-run shops, owners said customer numbers had fallen and they feared arrests. Zabi Ullah, a businessman at the market, said people had hidden in their homes and business had come to a standstill.

Four decades of war sent millions of Afghans into Pakistan. Hundreds of thousands more arrived after 2021, many hoping for resettlement in countries whose militaries they had once assisted. Pakistan, which says it faces growing attacks, announced in 2023 that it would begin deporting undocumented foreigners. This year it has carried out airstrikes on Afghanistan that it says targeted militants. The Taliban government has repeatedly denied that Afghan territory is used for militancy and said the attacks killed civilians.