Qaisar Afridi, spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Islamabad, said that currently three million Afghan refugees live in Pakistan, most of whom are undocumented.
Afridi also mentioned to Pakistani media that since the start of the forced deportation process, 630,000 Afghan refugees have been sent back to their country from Pakistan.
According to him, the UNHCR in Pakistan is attentive to the needs of Afghan refugees residing in Pakistan.
The spokesperson for the UNHCR in Pakistan said: “Approximately three million Afghan refugees, both documented and undocumented, live in Pakistan. This includes both legal and illegal refugees. Since the start of the deportation process, 630,000 Afghan refugees have been returned to their country from Pakistan.”
At the same time, the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation called on Pakistan and other countries not to deport Afghan refugees.
Abdul Mutalib Haqqani, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation, emphasizing that all the rights of refugees should be granted based on international laws, said: “We ask countries to grant refugee rights based on international laws and treat them according to the law.”
“We are facing many problems, including issues with obtaining visas, mobility, and numerous challenges that we encounter,” One of the Afghan refugees in Pakistan said.
Earlier, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Pakistan said that Islamabad had not given any indication to the UNHCR that the program for the return of undocumented foreign nationals has been suspended or will not be implemented in the future.