PESHAWAR, Pakistan: Thirty-three-year-old Rafaqat Ali has been running a grocery shop for the past 11 years in Hazar Khwani, a neighbourhood in the environs of Peshawar—the capital of Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
An Afghan national by origin, he hails from Jalalabad in Afghanistan. However, having visited his home country only a few times throughout his life, he feels more like a Pakistani than an Afghan.
His ancestors migrated to Peshawar in 1981 in the wake of the conflict between Afghanistan and Russia and he was born a few years later. His family holds Afghan Citizen Cards (ACC).
The persistent terrorist attacks in Pakistan, orchestrated and facilitated from Afghanistan, have compelled the Pakistani government to take measures to remove the Afghan presence from the country.
Unfortunately, the successive Afghan governments since 2000, including the current regime, have shown little regard for Pakistan’s legitimate concerns about terrorist activities originating from its soil.
On the brink of expulsion
Finally, following tensions between the Pakistani and Afghan governments at the Torkham border on February 21 this year, and particularly after the militant attack on Bannu Cantt, the Pakistani government announced a deadline of March 31, 2025, for Afghan Citizen Card (ACC) holders.
Otherwise, they will face expulsion. Proof of Registration (POR) cardholders have the deadline until June 30, 2025.
The decision has left hundreds of thousands of Afghans deeply worried, primarily due to the education of their children and the businesses they have established in Pakistan.
Like Rafaqat, most of the Afghans, sheltering in Pakistan, neither own a home in Afghanistan nor see a future for themselves and their children there.
The persistent terrorist attacks in Pakistan, orchestrated and facilitated from Afghanistan, have compelled the Pakistani government to take measures to remove Afghan presence from the country.”
The decision has left hundreds of thousands of Afghans walking on thin ice, primarily due to the education of their children and the businesses they have established in Pakistan.
Numbers in flux
According to data from the Afghan Commissionerate, there are 2,263,376 Afghan citizens in Pakistan holding either ACC or POR cards.
Among them, 1,111,089 reside in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 636,305 in Balochistan, 302,014 in Punjab, 146,339 in Sindh, 59,609 in Islamabad, and 8,020 in Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan.
Meanwhile, there are 1,304,650 Afghan citizens in Pakistan with Proof of Registration (POR) cards.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa hosts the largest number of PoR-holding Afghans, totalling 751,293.
It is followed by Balochistan with 369,929, Punjab with 202,190, Sindh with 80,409, Islamabad with 42,033, and Azad Jammu Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan with 4,512.
The total number of Afghan Citizen Card (ACC) holders stands at 813,010, including 434,148 men and 378,862 women.
The majority—44 per cent (359,796 individuals)—reside in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, with 187,545 men and 172,251 women.
In Balochistan, 33 per cent reside, totalling 266,376 people. This is followed by 99,824 people (12 per cent) in Punjab, 65,930 (8 per cent) in Sindh, 17,576 (2 per cent) in Islamabad, 3,500 in Azad Kashmir, and just eight in Gilgit-Baltistan.
An additional 145,716 unregistered family members of the PoR card holders bring the total number of Afghan nationals staying in Pakistan to 2,409,092.
An unending cycle
Abbas Khan, a former commissioner of the Afghan Commissionerate in Peshawar, estimates that there are between 400,000 and 500,000 unregistered Afghan nationals in Pakistan, primarily in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.
Finally, following tensions between the Pakistani and Afghan governments at the Torkham border on February 21 this year, and particularly after the militant attack on Bannu Cantt, the Pakistani government announced a deadline of March 31, 2025, for Afghan Citizen Card (ACC) holders.”
However, there is no official data confirming the exact number of unregistered Afghan nationals.
According to Iran Interior Ministry spokesman Nadir Yar Ahmedi, Afghan citizens who fail to leave by March 31 will first be identified, then detained and transported to the border, where they will be sent back to Afghanistan.
For Pakistan, the issue of Afghan repatriation has become a never-ending story, as every repatriation effort is soon followed by another influx of migrants.
Proof of Registration (PoR)
After the war between Afghanistan and Russia in 1979, Afghan nationals were given the status of Afghan refugees, but Pakistan, not a State party to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol, withdrew the refugee status in 2000.
Until 1995, Afghan citizens resided in various refugee camps in Pakistan. Yet, after certain camps were abolished, many refugees dispersed into cities.
Despite this, Pakistani authorities did not maintain accurate data on their population or whereabouts.
Therefore, in 2005, a joint census of Afghan citizens was conducted by the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan along with the UNHCR.
In 2006, those identified in the census were issued Proof of Registration cards, which was a one-time facilitation.
Afghan Citizen Card
Since 2006, there has been a floodgate of Afghan migration into Pakistan due to unhindered cross-border movement at the Pak-Afghan border.
However, they remained unregistered, as the Pakistani government had made it clear that the issuance of PoR cards would never be repeated.
For Pakistan, the issue of Afghan repatriation has become a never-ending story, as every repatriation effort is soon followed by another influx of migrants.”
This became a significant security threat to Pakistan, as the government lacked data on the hundreds of thousands of Afghans residing illegally within its borders.
The established link to Afghanistan in the tragic Army Public School (APS) attack in December 2014—where over 150 people, mostly children, were killed—served as a glaring example of this looming threat.
Subsequently, under the National Action Plan—devised in the backdrop of the APS tragedy—Pakistani authorities registered illegally staying Afghan nationals and issued them Afghan Citizen Cards, instead of Proof of Registration (PoR) cards in 2017.
The Afghan Commissionerate, in collaboration with the Afghan authorities, was tasked with registering these illegal Afghans.
Presence beyond Pakistan
According to Iranian government estimates, 4.5 million Afghan nationals are currently residing in Iran. Unlike their free rein in Pakistan to move and conduct businesses, Iran categorised them into six different groups for residency purposes.
The first group is the wife and husband, one of whom has a residence card—it serves as proof of their legal status and grants them the right to live, work, and access certain services within Iran—and the other has a census sheet—a document used for identifying and recording individuals for residency purposes in Iran.
The second group is the wife and husband who have a residence card and the other has a census sheet with children.
The third category includes those Afghans who have a valid passport but an expired visa.
According to Iran Interior Ministry spokesman Nadir Yar Ahmedi, such Afghan refugees can remain in Iran provided they pay a fine to the police, leave the country for a specified period, and return after obtaining a visa.
Afghan refugees with work permits are included in the fourth category, which allows them to continue their work in Iran after receiving legal documents.
The repatriation process seems to be a revolving door, with many Afghans returning to Pakistan after being deported, unable to find stability in Afghanistan.”
Officials from the former Afghan government, as well as military personnel and civil servants, are classified under the fifth category of refugees. After their identities are verified, they are referred to international organisations for further assistance in determining their future.
The sixth and final group of Afghan refugees who can stay in Iran are those farmers who possess a census form. They can live in the country legally after obtaining valid passports and visas.
According to the 2023 statistics from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), in addition to Pakistan and Iran, Afghans are residing in various countries worldwide.
These include Germany (over 300,000), the USA (over 100,000), Turkey (300,000 to 500,000), Australia (over 30,000) and Canada (over 40,000).
Ongoing cycle of repatriation
Data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) shows that between 2002 and 2024, a total of 4,450,029 Afghan refugees voluntarily returned from Pakistan to Afghanistan with assistance.
In 2024 alone, 25,634 Afghan refugees have voluntarily left Pakistan and returned to Afghanistan.
The repatriation process seems to be a revolving door, with many Afghans returning to Pakistan after being deported, unable to find stability in Afghanistan.
According to a United Nations report, since the establishment of the Islamic Emirate in Afghanistan, eight million people have migrated from Afghanistan, with 85 per cent settling in neighbouring countries.
A question of resolve
Following the Soviet-Afghan war in the early 1980s, a significant influx of Afghan refugees sought shelter in Pakistan.
In 2002, under the UNHCR Voluntary Repatriation Programme, approximately 1.5 million Afghans were assisted in returning to Afghanistan.
However, due to inadequate border controls, many returned to Pakistan, with crossings at points like the Torkham border often occurring without valid legal documents such as passports or visas.
In 2015, following the tragic attack on the Army Public School (APS) in Peshawar, the Pakistani government announced plans to deport undocumented Afghans. Despite these intentions, the efforts fell flat, and the influx continued.
Similarly, in 2017, after the bombing at the shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in Sehwan Sharif, Sindh, another repatriation initiative was declared but yielded little more than lip service.
On September 6, 2023, tensions escalated when the Torkham border crossing was closed due to the Afghan Taliban constructing an unauthorised post.
Pakistan subsequently announced operations against illegal Afghan residents, yet, these measures were not sustained over time.
The effectiveness of these border closures and repatriation announcements raises questions.
It is essential to assess whether such actions are genuine attempts to address security and immigration concerns or if they serve as temporary measures to influence the Afghan government’s stance or to placate domestic sentiments.
