The order was abrupt and final – 45 minutes to pack up and leave Pakistan for good.
Sher Khan, a 42-year-old Afghan born and raised in Pakistan, had just returned from a long shift at a brick factory when a plainclothes officer knocked on his door with the chilling command. Stunned, he struggled to process how he could uproot an entire life in under an hour.
In a frantic blur, Khan and his wife gathered what little they could – a few kitchen essentials, clothes for their nine children – and abandoned everything else in their home in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
Born to Afghan refugees who fled the Soviet invasion in 1979, Khan is now among the hundreds of thousands caught in Pakistan’s sweeping crackdown on undocumented foreigners launched in October 2023.
Nearly 1 million Afghans have already been forced out. Pakistan says millions more remain – and insists they, too, must go.
“All our belongings were left behind,” Khan said as he stood in a dusty, windswept refugee camp just across the Afghan border in Torkham, the first stop for expelled refugees. “We tried so hard over the years to collect the things that we had with honor.”
Pakistan set several deadlines earlier this year for Afghans to leave or face deportation. Afghan Citizen Card holders had to leave the capital, Islamabad, and Rawalpindi by March 31, while those with Proof of Registration could stay until June 30. No specific deadlines were set for Afghans living elsewhere in Pakistan.
Khan feared that delaying his departure beyond the deadline might have resulted in his wife and children being hauled off to a police station along with him – a blow to his family’s dignity.
“We are happy that we came [to Afghanistan] with modesty and honor,” he said. As for his lost belongings: “God may provide for them here, as he did there.”
At the Torkham camp, run by Afghanistan’s Taliban government, each family receives a SIM card and 10,000 Afghanis (about $145) in aid. They can spend up to three days there before having to move on.
The camp’s director, Molvi Hashim Maiwandwal, said some 150 families were arriving daily from Pakistan – far fewer than the roughly 1,200 families who were arriving about two months ago. But he said another surge was expected after the three-day Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha, which started June 7.
Aid organizations inside the camp help with basic needs, including health care. Local charity Aseel provides hygiene kits and food assistance. It has also set up a food package delivery system for families once they arrive at their final destination elsewhere in Afghanistan.
Aseel’s Najibullah Ghiasi said they expected a surge in arrivals “by a significant number” after Eid. “We cannot handle all of them, because the number is so huge,” he said, adding that the organization was trying to boost fundraising to support more people.
Pakistan accuses Afghans of staging militant attacks inside the country, saying assaults are planned from across the border – a charge Kabul’s Taliban government denies.
Pakistan denies targeting Afghans and maintains that everyone leaving the country is treated humanely and with dignity. But for many, there is little that is humane about being forced to pack up and leave in minutes or hours.
Iran, too, has been expelling Afghans. The U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, said on June 5 that 500,000 Afghans had been forced to leave Iran and Pakistan in the two months since April 1.
Rights groups and aid agencies say authorities are pressuring Afghans into leaving sooner.
In April, Human Rights Watch said police had raided houses, beaten and arbitrarily detained people, and confiscated refugee documents, including residence permits. Officers demanded bribes to allow Afghans to remain in Pakistan, the group added.
Fifty-year-old Yar Mohammad lived in Pakistan-administered Kashmir for nearly 45 years. The father of 12 built a successful business polishing floors and hired several workers. Plainclothes policemen knocked on his door, too. They gave him six hours to leave.
“No way a person can wrap up so much business in six hours, especially if they spent 45 years in one place,” he said. Friends rushed to his aid to help pack up what they could: the company’s floor-polishing machines, some tables, bed frames, mattresses and clothes.
Now all his household belongings are crammed into orange tents in the Torkham refugee camp, his hard-earned polishing machines exposed to the elements outside. After three days of searching, he managed to find a place to rent in Kabul.
“I have no idea what we will do,” he said, adding that he would try to recreate his floor-polishing business in Afghanistan. “If this works here, it is the best thing to do.”
