Afghan nationals at risk of deportation from Pakistan

We are extremely alarmed by Pakistan’s announcement that it plans to deport “undocumented” foreign nationals remaining in the country after 1 November, a measure that will disproportionately impact more than 1.4 million undocumented Afghans who remain in Pakistan.

There are more than two million undocumented Afghans living in Pakistan, at least 600,000 of whom left Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover in August 2021.

We believe many of those facing deportation will be at grave risk of human rights violations if returned to Afghanistan, including arbitrary arrest and detention, torture, cruel and other inhuman treatment.

Those at particular risk are: civil society activists, journalists, human rights defenders, former government officials and security force members, and of course women and girls as a whole, who, as a result of the abhorrent policies currently in place in Afghanistan, are banned from secondary and tertiary education, working in many sectors and other aspects of daily and public life.

Already, UNHCR and IOM have documented a sharp increase in returns to Afghanistan since the deadline was announced on 3 October. A recent flash report by UNHCR and IOM placed the number of Afghans who left Pakistan in the month to 15 October at 59,780 individuals. 78 percent of those returning cited fear of arrest as the reason for leaving Pakistan.

As the 1 November deadline approaches, we urge the Pakistan authorities to suspend forcible returns of Afghan nationals before it is too late to avoid a human rights catastrophe. We call on them to continue providing protection to those in need and ensure that any future returns are safe, dignified and voluntary and fully consistent with international law.

Deportations without individualized determinations of personal circumstances, including any mass deportations, would amount to refoulement in violation of international human rights law, in particular the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, to which Pakistan is a State party, and of international refugee law.

And as winter approaches, any mass deportations are bound to deepen the dire humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, as it grapples with the devastating impact of a series of earthquakes that struck Herat Province this month, leaving at least 1,400 people dead and 1,800 injured, as per official figures. According to OCHA, close to 30 million people are currently in need of relief assistance in Afghanistan - out of a population of 43 million - and 3.3 million are internally displaced.

We remind the de facto authorities of the international human rights obligations that continue to bind Afghanistan as a state and their obligations to protect, promote and fulfil human rights.