Pakistan will not expel Afghan refugees holding legal documents: Bugti

Pakistan Interim Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti rejected reports of mistreatment of Afghan migrants by the country’s security forces, and said refugees with immigration cards will not be deported from Pakistan.

Bugti made these remarks in a session in the Pakistani Senate on Monday, November 13.

He stated that approximately 300,000 illegal Afghan migrants have voluntarily returned to their home country from Pakistan and that Islamabad has deported only 8,000 of them.

Political parties in Pakistan’s Senate have also asked the country’s government to stop the process of deporting Afghan migrants.

Earlier, Balochistan’s acting Minister of Information Jan Achakzai said in a news conference in Karachi that Islamabad will begin the process of returning “registered refugees” to their home countries once it completes the deportation of all illegal immigrants.

Meanwhile, officials of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan say that preparations have been made to deal with the problems of the migrants.

The decision made by Pakistan is unfair, but within Afghanistan, the Islamic Emirate is making its final efforts to manage the crisis of migrants who return to the country, said Bilal Karimi, IEA’s deputy spokesman.

Despite calls from the United Nations and human rights groups urging Pakistan to reconsider its decision and halt the forced expulsion of migrants, the interim government of the country has not responded positively to these requests so far.