The endless exile of Afghan refugees in Pakistan
Since early October 2025, there have been several skirmishes between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Islamabad accuses Kabul of harbouring Pakistani Taliban belonging to the Tahrik-e-Taliban Pakistan movement (TTP) who have perpetrated several terrorist attacks in their country. On 9 October, Pakistan carried out several strikes against its neighbour (including its capital), who hit back, targeting military bases across the border. A fragile cease-fire was then concluded under the auspices of Qatar and Turkey. Yet the Pakistani authorities keep hounding Afghan refugees who have no connection with TTP and who had in fact fled the Taliban. Here is the account of a reverse exile heading for an Afghanistan where many of the “returning” refugees have never set foot.
The once lively streets of Pari Mohalla in Taxila, some 40 kilometers northwest of Islamabad, have become a kind of ghost town. In front of the abandoned houses of this working class neighbourhood, stray dogs are waiting patiently for the scraps to which they’ve been accustomed. But in vain. The hundreds of Afghan families who once lived here have returned to neighbouring Afghanistan, hounded by the police, expelled or driven away by fear.
Among the last to leave are Mohammed Mir and his family: “My parents left Afghanistan in 1984.There was war over there”, this family man explains. He is wearing a sky-blue traditional tunic and a little white hat with silver trim. “I was born here, in Taxila, in 1987. I spent my childhood in the streets, I married and our children were born here. But the authorities have decided we should go back to Afghanistan.”
The once lively streets of Pari Moxalla in Taxila have been emptied of hundreds of Afghan families. According to the UN, since the beginning of these operations in 2023, 1.6 million Afghans have left Pakistan, 132,000 of them deported.
Departure for an unknown country
The “Repatriation Plan for Illegal Aliens” was launched by the Pakistani authorities in September 2023, mainly targeting Afghans who arrived during the wars that raged in their country during the last forty years. In the eyes of the Pakistani authorities, their country has borne its share of the humanitarian responsibility by receiving and regularising millions of Afghan refugees for decades. Now that Afghanistan is considered stabilised, Islamabad feels it is reasonable to expect these refugees to go home, given that Pakistan itself is faced with major economic and security challenges.
Faced with fears of police raids, merchants in this Afghan-dominated bazaar in Taxila had to sell off their assets in a hurry. Mohammed sold his cosmetics store for barely a tenth of its value.
First to be targeted were the undocumented and the migrants. But since September 1st 2025, and for the first time, it involves refugees who are officially registered with the UN High Commission for Refugees, i.e. nearly 1.5 million of the 2.8 million Afghans in Pakistan. Pakistan has never ratified the Geneva convention which prohibits deportation to a country where a refugee is at risk of losing his or her life or liberty.
That meant disaster for shopkeeper Mohammed. He had to pack thirty-eight years of his life into suitcases to prepare to leave for a country he had never known. Yet the constitution stipulates that anyone born on Pakistani soil has the right to citizenship. In reality, however, this right is largely out of reach for many children born to Afghan refugees. “This crisis is a lot worse than the previous ones,” says Qaisar Afridi, spokesperson for UNHCR in Pakistan. “The asylum space is shrinking, and this has become official policy, determined at state level.”
“The police may raid at any moment”
In Mohammed’s neighbourhood, the same scene has been repeated for weeks as one family leaves after another. “All our things have been packed for almost a month now. At any moment the police may raid, so we have to be ready,” says Mohammed. In his house, everything is stacked, blankets, pillows, carpets, winter clothes, dishes, bags of rice, all carefully labelled.
Mohammed has packed all his belongings to be ready to leave in the event of a police raid. He sold his goats and cows for half what they are worth as well as the furniture which might have been damaged on the way.
Mohammed has packed up a life of thirty-eight years. All he has to do now before leaving is to sell his house, built in 2012, and his other shop.
He is getting ready to load his things into a lorry. But with this refugee crisis, the carriers have raised their prices considerably so that many families can’t afford to hire a lorry. “The truckers are taking advantage of the situation,” Mohammed laments. “They are demanding twice, sometimes three or four times the normal amount. I managed to hire a refrigerated truck, that normally carries fruit, for 400,000 rupees (approximately $1,400).”
Some Afghan families can’t afford to hire a carrier. Mohammed organised collections in his neighbourhood to help his poorest neighbours pay for a lorry back to Afghanistan.
He considers himself the victim of unfair scapegoating. “The government blames the Afghan refugees for all the country’s problems: unemployment, insecurity, terrorism. But we work, we’re shopkeepers, factory workers, all working hard trying to make a decent living.”
Lying behind this policy is Islamabad’s aim to put pressure on Kabul to neutralise the Pakistani Taliban (Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, TTP). Since 2021, when the Taliban took power again in Kabul, armed cross-border actions have intensified. In 2024, terrorist attacks claimed over 1,500 military and civilian lives, especially in border regions, a sorry record which made it the bloodiest year in a decade. Pakistan accuses the Afghan authorities of tolerating this group, whose ideology they share, and of harbouring its rear bases. The increase in terrorist attacks has heightened tensions between the two countries to the point of causing violent clashes, halted only by a fragile agreement in Doha on 19 October 2025.
Easy scapegoats
Threatened with police raids, Mohammed had to sell all he owned as quickly as possible: “We sold a lot of the things we couldn’t take with us, like our furniture which might have been damaged. We also sold our goats and cows, at half price.” In the bazaar, where most of the vendors are Afghans, Mohammed owned two shops. He had to sell his cosmetics shop for barely a tenth of its value. Now, he’s trying to sell his clothing shop as soon as possible, for cash only, so he can get away before the police come to arrest him. “We have to sell everything at a loss, start life over somewhere else”, he says regretfully, standing in an almost empty shop where the unsold clothes are carefully stacked.
When the fighting broke out on the border in the middle of October, the deportation policies intensified. The authorities shut down 54 refugee camps, emptied whole neighbourhoods and set up a system in Punjab province enabling ordinary citizens to denounce the presence of “illegal immigrants”. On 17 October 2025, the federal government went even further: new exit crossings were opened on the Afghan border, signalling its determination to accelerate the departures.
An Afghan refugee truck waiting by the Nowshera UNHCR centre. With the refugee crisis, the carriers have raised their prices considerably so that many families cannot afford to hire a lorry.
The population’s attitude toward these easy scapegoats has also become more hostile: “Since they came, we’ve had insecurity, drug dealing, arms trafficking and prostitution” says Zainab Kakar, manager in a micro-finance company, who comes from Baluchistan, a province on the border with Afghanistan. “Since the deportations began, the roads are cleaner, there is less traffic and I feel safer,” she adds, sitting on the terrace of a smart Islamabad café, although she grew up amidst Afghan families. The anti-refugee rhetoric also fuels new forms of illegality: bribing police officers, seizing empty property, or scams promising fake humanitarian visas.
The Constitution stipulates that anyone born on Pakistani soil has the right to be naturalised. But in reality, this right is largely beyond the reach of many children of Afghan refugees.
Every effort is made to prompt those who slip through the police dragnets to leave anyway. For Mohammed, the hardest part is watching his children’s despair. “The kids aren’t ready to leave. Whenever I talk about leaving, they start to cry.” Like Hina, his six-year-old daughter, a first-grader in a neighbourhood private school. She had to say good-bye to her classmates. In Afghanistan she’ll be prevented by law from studying beyond primary school. Her elder brother has already had to give up attending public school two years ago when they began rounding up Afghan refugees.
Bilal, Mohammed’s eldest son, stands watch over their belongings, unloaded in a vacant lot on the outskirts of Kabul. He had to drop out of school two years ago when the roundups of Afghan refugees began in Pakistan.
Before setting out, Mohammed insists on visiting the family cemetery, a patch of grass where his father, aunt and niece were laid to rest... The shopkeeper kneels down, his eyes wet with tears, pulls a few weeds from the tombstones. “When something was bothering us, we would come here to find relief... When we’ve gone, there won’t be anybody to visit them, we’re the last.”
Before setting out, Mohammed insists on visiting the family cemetery, where his father, aunt and niece are laid to rest.
Mohammed is worried: once he is gone, no one will visit or care for the graves of his loved ones.
A few hours later, it’s time to go. In front of the heavily laden lorry, many friends and neighbours have come to see them off. The men embrace and sob. In the van where the women and children are sitting the muffled sounds of weeping mingle with the noise of the engine. From the brown burqa of one of them, a sigh of despair can be heard: “We’re being forced to leave.” As for Mohammed, he is speechless. Forty years after the exile of his parents, it is his turn to take to the road, refugee once again.
On the day of departure, family and neighbours help load the lorry hired by Mohammed to take them to Afghanistan. He sold a lot of belongings which he couldn’t take with him, as he couldn’t afford a bigger lorry.
In front of the heavily loaded lorry, friends and neighbours have come to say a last good-bye.
Children separated from their parents, wives from their husbands
Near the border, Mohammed’s lorry joins a long queue of vehicles crammed with Afghan families. Before they cross over, they have to register at a UNHCR centre. Registration entitles them to a minimal assistance for the journey and resettlement: about $150 per family. “In Kabul we have nothing, no house, no possessions, no connections”, Mohammed blurts hoarsely. “Everything I built in thirty-eight years is lost. We’re going to have to start again from scratch.”
By registering in a UNHCR centre Afghan families can get a symbolic sum for the journey and resettlement: about $150 per family.
Human rights advocates denounce these trying conditions. “At the various border crossings, the refugees face long waits, difficult weather conditions and a lack of basic services for women, children and seniors,” says Moniza Kakar, a Karachi-based human rights lawyer who is battling to prevent asylum seekers and Afghan refugees from being sent back to Afghanistan: “Many eye-witness reports tell of aggressive ID checks, family separations, especially children separated from their parents or women sent back alone, and inadequate access to food and medical care”. According to the UN, since the beginning of these operations in September 2023, 1.6 million Afghans have left Pakistan, of whom 132,000 were deported.
Mohammed’s family arrives at a UNHCR centre at Nowshera in the province of Kyber Pakhunkwa on the border with Afghanistan.
Mohammed, his wife and his children preparing to leave the UNHCR after finishing the last formalities before crossing the border towards an uncertain future. In Afghanistan, they have no home, no property, no connections.
Humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan
The road to Kabul climbs through the Khyber Pass, the historic passage between the two countries, and then a winding highway down to Jalalabad before reaching the capital. In Kabul, Mohammed and his family discover a different scene, with the white flag of the Islamic Emirate flying everywhere.
The reality is brutal. Afghanistan is undergoing one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. Since the Taliban took over the country again in 2021, the economy has collapsed: international aid has been drastically curtailed, poverty is rampant. The government is overwhelmed, unable to cope with the mass arrival of Afghans ejected from Iran and Pakistan.
Mohammed has unloaded his lorry on a vacant lot at the edge of the city centre. In the distance can be seen the barren hills dotted with modest dwellings. All his efforts to find a place to stay have failed. The real estate market is saturated with the influx of newcomers. “Seeing all my things exposed to the elements out here in the open when I used to have all the comforts of a home, is very painful”, he complains, spreading a big tarp over his possessions. “We used to live altogether, an extended family. Today we’re scattered, it’s impossible to find a place where we can all be together and make a living.”
Mohammed has unloaded his belongings on a vacant lot at the edge of Kabul city centre until he can find a place to live. The real estate market is saturated by the mass return of refugees from Iran and Pakistan.
His savings are dwindling by the day. It all goes towards renting his lot. Soon Mohammed will have to accept day-to-day odd jobs for $5 a day, not enough to feed his family. In 2025, according to the UN, more than half the population of Afghanistan, some 23 million people, will need help to survive. 12.6 million are faced with acute food insecurity.
Some Afghan families have even dismantled their houses to take the materials with them to Afghanistan, which is facing a deep humanitarian crisis. According to the United Nations, in 2025 more than half of Afghans, nearly 23 million people, will need assistance to survive.
Mohammed is mostly worried about his children: “The first obstacle is the language. In Kabul, most people speak Dari and my children don’t understand it.” And he adds: “If things don’t improve, I’ll have no choice: I’ll just have to try and find a way to send them to a western country”. During the first six months of 2025 the Afghans were the second largest group of asylum seekers in Europe: 42,000 requests, over one person in ten. Travelling dangerous routes which have seen more than 8,900 deaths and disappearances worldwide in 2024. For many, exile is endless.
Translated by Noël Burch