Afghan households experience on a truck heading to a border crossing in Torkham, Pakistan, Tuesday, earlier than the expiration of a Pakistani deadline for individuals who are within the nation illegally to depart or face deportation. Pakistan’s crackdown has apprehensive 1000’s of Afghans within the nation awaiting relocation to the United States beneath a particular refugee program since fleeing the Taliban takeover.

Muhammad Sajjad/AP

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Muhammad Sajjad/AP

Afghan households experience on a truck heading to a border crossing in Torkham, Pakistan, Tuesday, earlier than the expiration of a Pakistani deadline for individuals who are within the nation illegally to depart or face deportation. Pakistan’s crackdown has apprehensive 1000’s of Afghans within the nation awaiting relocation to the United States beneath a particular refugee program since fleeing the Taliban takeover.

Muhammad Sajjad/AP

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Large numbers of Afghans crammed into vehicles and buses in Pakistan on Tuesday, heading to the border to return dwelling forward of the expiration of a Pakistani authorities deadline for individuals who are within the nation illegally to depart or face deportation.

The deadline is a part of a new anti-migrant crackdown that targets all undocumented or unregistered foreigners, based on Islamabad. But it largely impacts Afghans, who make up the majority of migrants in Pakistan.

The expulsion marketing campaign has drawn widespread criticism from U.N. businesses, rights teams and the Taliban-led administration in Afghanistan.

Pakistani officers warn that people who find themselves within the nation illegally face arrest and deportation after Oct. 31. U.N. businesses say there are greater than 2 million undocumented Afghans in Pakistan, not less than 600,000 of whom fled after the Taliban takeover in 2021.

Human Right Watch on Tuesday accused Pakistan of resorting to “threats, abuse, and detention to coerce Afghan asylum seekers without legal status” to return to Afghanistan. The New York-based watchdog appealed for authorities to drop the deadline and work with the U.N. refugee company to register these with out papers.

Although the government insists it isn’t targeting Afghans, the marketing campaign comes amid strained relations between Pakistan and the Taliban rulers subsequent door. Islamabad accuses Kabul of turning a blind eye to Taliban-allied militants who discover shelter in Afghanistan, from the place they travel throughout the 2 international locations’ shared 2,611-kilometer (1,622-mile) border to stage assaults in Pakistan. The Taliban deny the accusations.

“My father came to Pakistan 40 years ago,” mentioned 52-year-old Mohammad Amin, talking in Peshawar, the capital of the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province that borders Afghanistan.

“He died here. My mother also died here and their graves are in Pakistan,” mentioned Amin, initially from Afghanistan’s japanese Nangarhar province. “We are going back today as we never tried to register ourselves as refugees with the U.N. refugee agency.”

“I am going back with good memories,” he advised The Associated Press, including he deliberate to move to the Torkham border crossing later Tuesday and that he’d requested the Taliban authorities for assist to start out a brand new life.

Nasrullah Khan, 62, mentioned he’d heard the Taliban are contemplating serving to Afghans on their return from Pakistan. He mentioned he was not apprehensive by the prospect of Taliban rule however that it was nonetheless “better to go back to Afghanistan instead of getting arrested here.”

Pakistani officers mentioned the Torkam and Chaman border crossings with Afghanistan will stay open past their day by day 4 p.m. closure to permit for individuals who have arrived there to depart the nation.

More than 200,000 Afghans have returned dwelling for the reason that crackdown was launched, based on Pakistani officers. U.N. agencies have reported a sharp increase in Afghans leaving Pakistan forward of the deadline.

Pakistan has insisted the deportations can be carried out in a “phased and orderly” manner.

A Taliban delegation traveled to Nangarhar Tuesday to search out options for Afghans returning by way of the Torkham border.

Sayed Ahmad Banwari, the deputy provincial governor, advised state TV that native authorities are working laborious to ascertain momentary camps.

Banwari mentioned that households with nowhere to go can keep within the camps for a month till they discover a place to dwell.

The crackdown has apprehensive 1000’s of Afghans in Pakistan ready for relocation to the United States beneath a particular refugee program since fleeing the Taliban takeover. Under U.S. guidelines, candidates first needed to relocate to a 3rd nation — on this case Pakistan — for his or her instances to be processed.

A U.S. diplomat, who spoke on situation of anonymity to debate the coverage, mentioned Washington’s precedence was to facilitate the protected and environment friendly resettlement and relocation of greater than 25,000 eligible Afghans in Pakistan to the U.S.

Even earlier than the Pakistani marketing campaign was introduced, Washington had requested Islamabad “to ensure the protection of Afghan refugees and asylum seekers, including those in the U.S. resettlement and immigration pipelines,” the diplomat mentioned. “We are in the process of sending letters to those individuals that they can share with local authorities to help identify them as individuals in the U.S. pipeline”.

The applicants often protest in Pakistan in opposition to the delay within the approval of their U.S. visas.

Afghanistan goes by way of a extreme humanitarian disaster, significantly for women and girls, who’re banned by the Taliban from getting an education past the sixth grade, most public areas and jobs. There are additionally restrictions on media, activists, and civil society organizations.

Jan Achakzai, a authorities spokesman in Pakistan’s southwestern Baluchistan province, mentioned on Tuesday that anybody who’s detained beneath the brand new coverage will likely be effectively handled and obtain transport to the Chaman border crossing level.