Border Crossing Flooded With Afghans Amid Pakistan's Deportation Crackdown

Afghan citizens wait at a holding center set up at the Chaman border crossing along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in Pakistan's Balochistan Province on November 2.

Thousands of Afghans are seeking to cross into Afghanistan following Islamabad's announcement that all undocumented immigrants in Pakistan must leave the country or face arrest.
 

An Afghan boy ferries young children in a wheelbarrow at the border in Chaman, which is also known as the Friendship Gate.

Pakistan is home to more than 4 million Afghan migrants and refugees, about 1.7 million of them undocumented, Islamabad says, although many have lived in Pakistan for their entire lives.

 

Afghans arrive at the Chaman border crossing.

Islamabad has resorted to threats and abuse to compel the illegal Afghans to leave the country, Human Rights Watch says. Many fled Afghanistan during the decades of armed conflict that the country has suffered since the late 1970s. The Taliban's takeover after the withdrawal of U.S.-led coalition forces in 2021 led to another exodus.

An official checks the documents of an Afghan family.

Afghan men and boys sit patiently at the holding center.

Major roads leading to the border crossings were jammed with trucks carrying families and whatever belongings they could carry.

Afghan women and children wait at the center.

Aid agencies warned that the mass movement of people could tip Afghanistan into yet another crisis and expressed "grave concerns" about the survival and reintegration of the returnees, particularly with the onset of winter.

Many Afghans have run into trouble finding transport that will take them to their final destinations, said Ismatullah, a bus-service operator. "A huge number of people are coming from Karachi but face a shortage of buses and trucks," he said. "Obviously, in such situations, the fares have increased."

Transportation trucks and buses and Afghans wait at the holding camp near Chaman on November 1.

As of November 2, officials said more than 165,000 Afghans have fled Pakistan, more than 1 million of whom are Afghan nationals who fled following the August 2021 seizure of power in Kabul by Taliban militants.