Khyber Pakhtunkhwa [Pakistan], April 14 : As many as 1,458 Afghan nationals holding citizen cards were repatriated from Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to Afghanistan through the Torkham border, ARY News reported, citing the home ministry.
According to Pakistan's Interior Ministry, 2,656 undocumented Afghan migrants were also deported. The Afghan citizens also include 1,245 individuals who returned voluntarily and 213 who were deported.
Repatriations were conducted from other regions, including Islamabad, where 15 card-holding and 92 undocumented Afghans were sent back, 198 card-holders and 451 undocumented individuals were repatriated from Punjab, and 195 Afghan migrant cardholders were deported from Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir.
In addition, 44 undocumented Afghans were deported from Sindh. Since September 2023, 527,705 undocumented Afghan migrants have been deported to Afghanistan, ARY News reported.
Meanwhile, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur said that Afghan refugees will not be forced to leave or thrown on the border. He expressed opposition to government policy to tackle people who resorted to arms.
Gandapur said, "We have to see, why they have taken arms. They are our own people, we have to own them," Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's CM here said. "We have solution of terrorism," ARY News reported.
On deportation of Afghan refugees to their homeland, Gandapur said, "We could not throw them back on the border". "We will not send Afghan migrants back until the Afghan government consents to accept them." He stated that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government will not force any Afghan refugee to return. He said, "We have to move ahead to negotiate with Afghanistan."
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