A colossal humanitarian tragedy is unfolding close to India’s border, but the world is too preoccupied with the Israel-Hamas war and the woes of Palestinians caught in the crossfire to take note of it. Hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees are being forced to leave Pakistan as the country is carrying out an order from its interim government to remove undocumented people from within its borders. Of about 4 million Afghans living in Pakistan, nearly 1.7 million people are believed to be in the crosshairs of this forced eviction and repatriation plan.
The Pakistan government set the deadline of November 1 for these people to remain in the country or leave or otherwise face arrest and deportation. A network of holding centres for detained migrants has been set up in Pakistan’s mostly western provinces. There are reports of police high-handedness, harassment and abuse of Afghans living in the country. Nearly 200,000 Afghan refugees have already returned to their homeland which has become worse than prison as they face hostilities from the Taliban.
Human Rights Watch reveals refugees are now facing detentions, beatings and extortion by police. Others have been evicted by their landlords or fired from jobs. The UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has repeatedly appealed to the Pakistan government not to resort to forced repatriation of Afghan nationals. It warns that minorities, journalists and especially women and children are particularly in danger.
The Pakistan foreign ministry has responded by claiming that due precautions will be taken to ensure that those under greatest threat are not forced to return. But, this sounds like meaningless verbiage in the light of the abuses that are already taking place. The situation has come to such a pass because a caretaker government is now in place in Islamabad. It has little political accountability for a decision suspected to have been taken and imposed by the country’s real rulers, the military.
Pakistan is seemingly using the Afghans to achieve two objectives. First, it wants the refugees to go so as not to impose further financial burden on its already tottering economy. But, more importantly the Afghans have turned out to be a sort of Pakistan’s bargaining chip to protect the country against attacks and ravages being made by the Pakistan version of the Taliban. Islamabad wants to pressure the Taliban to check and curb the infiltration and plots of cross-border terrorists. In fact, the attacks have occurred even as Pakistan carries out its repatriation drive.
The acting interior minister, Sarfraz Bugti, has tried to justify this policy. The Taliban regime’s defence minister has chided Pakistan with a proverb in Pashto which in English means – As you sow, so you reap.
However, Bugti has a point when he said if the West were so concerned about the plight of these Afghans, it should have done more to relocate them. According to humanitarian groups, the $613m regional refugee response plan to support 7.3 million Afghans hosted in neighbouring countries, as pledged by the West, only 15 per cent has, so far, been made available.
The failure of Western countries to fulfil their promises and their responsibilities appears to be in line with the abrupt US withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan leaving the native population to be slaughtered and enslaved by the Taliban. In such a situation Pakistan was the only option for hundreds of thousands of Afghans desperate to flee their country in 2021. The West has a pathetic record in this regard. The European Union has resettled only 271 Afghan refugees in 2022.
Pressure should be applied by the West on Pakistan not to drive out the Afghan refugees to Afghanistan. All these current disturbed zones across the world project just one simple image. Everywhere it is only the children and women who bear the brunt of torture, rape and eventual death. They are the only deprived lot everywhere and it is only they who need and deserve protection and empathy.