Alleged detention and deportation of Afghan refugees. Feature image sources: Afghanistan International & Rukhshana Media
On 31 December 2024, Radio Azadi reported that police in Islamabad, Pakistan had detained some 80 Afghan refugees for lacking legal documents. On 1 January 2025, the same outlet reported that a number of those detained were held in a temporary detention camp for Afghan refugees (Haji Camp) awaiting deportation to Afghanistan. In the following days, reports and footage circulated online of intensifying inspections, detentions and deportation of Afghans — including women and children — in parts of Pakistan, in particular in Islamabad.
In response, on 6 January 2025, the Taliban-run Afghan embassy in Islamabad expressed concern over the detentions, saying that 800 Afghans had already been detained by the Pakistani police, including people holding legal documents, such as Proof of Residency Cards (PoRs, entitling the holder to legal temporary stay) and Afghan Citizen Cards (ACCs, distributed to undocumented Afghans). The embassy urged the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and human rights organisations to intervene immediately.
On 10 January 2025, Amu TV, a US-based Afghan media outlet, cited the Afghan embassy in Islamabad as saying that some 1,000 Afghans had been detained between 1 and 8 January 2025. Among these, 142 individuals had already been deported back to Afghanistan. The embassy alleged that Pakistani police engaged in extortion and harassment during this process.
The arrests triggered widespread condemnation by human rights organisations and activists, with Amnesty International labelling the detentions “arbitrary”. According to UNHCR, Pakistan hosts some 1.3 million Afghan refugees and over 1.5 million Afghans of other status (as of October 2024). Some 600,000 people left Afghanistan following the Taliban takeover in 2021 — among them are journalists, women human rights defenders and former security staff who had to flee to seek safety.
On 8 January 2025, the Afghanistan Women News Agency shared a video of a former female member of the security forces, Latifa Shujai, in which she claims to have been detained by Pakistani police along with two of her brothers in Rawalpindi for holding expired passports and visas. In the video, Shujai says, “I made this video to document [the incident} in case we return to Afghanistan and get killed there”.
Background: Pakistan’s 2023 “Illegal Foreigners’ Repatriation Plan”
The deportation of Afghans from Pakistan first intensified in late 2023. In September 2023, the Ministry of Interior (MoI) in Pakistan announced it would repatriate undocumented Afghan nationals under the “Illegal Foreigners’ Repatriation Plan”. The repatriation would take place in three phases, starting with Afghans with no documentation, followed by ACC and PoR holders.
The plan was announced amid escalating tensions between the Pakistani government and the Taliban over increasing attacks by the Pakistani Taliban (TTP). Pakistani authorities have furthermore accused Afghans residing in the country of involvement in terrorism. In October 2023, former Pakistani Minister for Interior Affairs, Sarfraz Bugti, reportedly claimed that 14 out of 24 suicide bombings that occurred in Pakistan in 2023 were perpetrated by Afghan nationals.
In October 2023, the Pakistani MoI reportedly issued a one-month deadline for undocumented foreigners — including 1.7 million Afghans — to leave the country, or they would face deportation.
In November 2024, the MoI began implementing the plan’s first phase, which resulted in the repatriation of around half a million people to Afghanistan. In April 2024, Pakistani authorities reportedly started the repatriation of ACC holders, although it was apparently not fully completed.
However, in July 2024, the government of Pakistan reportedly announced an extension of the deadline for PoR holders to stay in the country for one more year until June 2025. The extension was announced following a meeting between Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi.
In total, some 647,00 Afghans had returned to Pakistan as part of the plan as of June 2024, many due to pressure, coercion and the fear of arrest, according to UNHCR.
Heightened tensions trigger latest wave of deportations
The recent wave of detentions comes after an announcement by the Pakistani government in November 2024 that all Afghans in Islamabad must obtain a No Objection Certificate (NOC) by the end of 2024 to remain in the country — a legal document certifying that the government has no objection to an individual travelling and staying in a country for a specific duration.
This was preceded by protests in favour of former Prime Minister Imran Khan in the city in late November 2024. These led to the arrests of a thousand protesters, among them 19 Afghans, while rights groups report that police have since racially profiled Pashtuns — including Afghans — for retaliation.
At the same time, Afghan-Pakistani tensions have escalated amid Pakistan’s airstrike on alleged TTP targets in Paktika province on 24 December 2024. Pakistan authorities have previously been accused of using Afghan refugees as leverage to pressure the Taliban.