Diplomats for Afghanistan's ruling Taliban said Wednesday that neighboring Pakistan is implementing a plan for the "imminent" and rapid mass deportation of nearly three million Afghan refugees from its territory. More than 825,000 undocumented Afghans have already been forcibly repatriated from Pakistan since September 2023, as a result of a government crackdown on foreigners living in the country without legal permission or whose visas have expired.
Pakistan's move comes as Afghanistan remains in the grip of one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. Three and a half years after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, millions of people in Afghanistan are suffering misery and hunger in the midst of decades of conflict.
Millions of Afghans - especially children and women - continue to struggle in one of the world's largest, most neglected and complex humanitarian crises. The United Nations estimates that in 2025, 22.9 million people - including 12.3 million children - are in need of humanitarian assistance and protection.
On Wednesday, the Taliban-run embassy in Islamabad issued the statement, ending days of uncertainty about an ongoing police crackdown to arrest and remove Afghan citizens, including legal refugees, from the Pakistani capital and the neighboring city of Rawalpindi.
The Afghan diplomatic mission said Pakistan had not formally notified Kabul of its latest plans to deport refugees. It added that several attempts had been made through diplomatic channels to seek clarification from the host government on the reasons behind the detention and deportation of Afghan nationals from the two cities.
“Ultimately, officials from Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that there is a definitive and final plan to deport/remove all Afghan refugees not only from Islamabad and Rawalpindi but also from the entire country in the near future,” the Wednesday statement noted.
The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has likewise confirmed that the Pakistani government plans to relocate all Afghan refugees from Islamabad and Rawalpindi by February 28, except for those with valid visas.
The Taliban's response comes nearly three weeks after Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif approved a multi-phase plan for the Afghan refugee population in the country. This includes more than 1.4 million legally declared refugees with Proof of Registration (PoR) cards issued by the UNHCR, who have been allowed by Pakistan to remain in the country until June 30, 2025.
The rest of the targeted population includes nearly 900,000 documented economic migrants with Afghan Citizenship Cards (ACC), an estimated 40,000 awaiting promised resettlement in the United States or other Western countries, and individuals living in Pakistan without legal status or who have overstayed their visas.
The Taliban embassy said Wednesday that Pakistani officials had informed it that only Afghan nationals with valid legal visas would be allowed to stay in Islamabad and Rawalpindi.
“They further stated that the government has decided to immediately remove all Afghan refugees, including those holding ACC and PoR cards, from Islamabad and Rawalpindi and that their expulsion from the entire country is imminent,” the statement added.
The Afghan embassy said it had expressed "serious concerns" to Islamabad and international organizations regarding “the mass expulsion of Afghan refugees within such a short timeframe and the unilateral nature of Pakistan’s decision.”
The Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman dismissed the Taliban embassy's allegations of mistreatment of Afghan nationals during the deportation process as misplaced.
“In this connection, we also extensively engaged the Afghan side to ensure smooth repatriation of Afghan nationals,” Shafqat Ali Khan stated in a brief statement.
Under the deportation plan, the authorities will relocate some 40,000 Afghans from Islamabad and Rawalpindi by March 31 and then arrange for their repatriation to Afghanistan if their cases for relocation and resettlement in third countries are not processed expeditiously.
These individuals fled their country after the Taliban militarily regained control in 2021, primarily seeking protection from potential retaliation for their association with US and NATO forces.
Last month, the US administration halted the US refugee resettlement program in order to assess whether its resumption “aligns with the interests of the United States”, stranding thousands of Afghan allies in Pakistan approved for, or being evaluated for, relocation to the US.
In early October 2023, the Pakistani government announced plans to repatriate "illegal aliens" and threatened them with deportation. The Pakistani government has ignored global calls to stop the deportation of Afghan refugees.
According to UNHCR, more than 825,000 undocumented Afghans have already been forcibly repatriated from Pakistan since 2023. Returnees to Afghanistan are contributing to a worsening humanitarian crisis. Large numbers of Afghan returnees are vulnerable, including many women and children.
In September 2024, Iran similarly announced its intention to repatriate up to two million Afghans by March 2025. In 2024, approximately 1.2 million undocumented Afghan returnees returned to Afghanistan, with more than 1.1 million coming from Iran and 80,000 from Pakistan.
As of 2024, the five neighboring countries Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan hosted more than 8 million Afghans, including 5.5 million registered refugees and asylum seekers. According to UNHCR, many Afghans have been in the region for decades, mostly in the Islamic Republics of Iran and Pakistan.
The Regional Refugee Response Plan for the Afghanistan Situation 2025 seeks US$624.5 million to assist 7.3 million people, including 4.8 million Afghans and 2.5 million of their local hosts throughout the region.
Humanitarian needs have increased dramatically throughout Afghanistan due to the cumulative effects of violent conflict, displacement, drought and other natural disasters. Nearly one-third of Afghans continue to suffer from hunger.
According to the latest IPC food security analysis, more than 14.8 million people in Afghanistan will be acutely food insecure through March 2025, including 3.1 million people at emergency levels of food insecurity.
About 3.5 million children under the age of five are suffering or projected to suffer from acute malnutrition and require urgent assistance. This includes approximately 867,000 cases of severe acute malnutrition (SAM) and nearly 2.6 million cases of moderate acute malnutrition (MAM). In addition, an estimated 1.2 million pregnant and lactating women suffer from acute malnutrition.
The collapse of the country's economy is exacerbating humanitarian needs. Unemployment has doubled. And 48 percent of Afghans live below the poverty line.
The World Bank reported on Monday that the economic recovery in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan remains precarious and is beset by persistent challenges, including political uncertainty, financial isolation, reduced foreign aid, and fragile trade relations with neighboring Pakistan.
In its latest report, the bank said that persistently high poverty, unemployment, limited resources, and weak purchasing power continue to leave millions of Afghans vulnerable in a country reeling from years of conflict and natural disasters.
At the same time, Afghanistan is in the midst of a major human rights crisis, largely because the de facto authorities are targeting the rights of women and girls in the country by excluding them from public and political life, economic activity, and education, further exacerbating the humanitarian situation of the female population.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the main cause of humanitarian access constraints in January continued to be interference in the implementation of humanitarian activities by the new rulers. In January alone, the Taliban de facto authorities issued 12 directives that significantly impacted the humanitarian response in Afghanistan.
The actions of the de facto authorities against women and girls in the country - their exclusion from public and political life, from economic activity and from education - aggravate both the economic crisis throughout the country and, in particular, the security and humanitarian situation of the female population.
In January 2025, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced that he was seeking arrest warrants for senior Taliban leaders in Afghanistan accused of crimes against humanity, citing widespread persecution of the country's female and LGBTQI+ populations.
Karim Khan said his office would soon file additional requests to arrest other senior Taliban members. He identified the first suspects as Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada and his chief justice, Abdul Hakim Haqqani.
“My Office has concluded that these two Afghan nationals are criminally responsible for persecuting Afghan girls and women, as well as persons whom the Taliban perceived as not conforming with their ideological expectations of gender identity or expression, and persons whom the Taliban perceived as allies of girls and women,” Khan stated.
The Chief Prosecutor said both bear criminal responsibility for the crime against humanity of gender-based persecution. The persecution has been ongoing since August 2021, when the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan and imposed their strict interpretation of Islamic law.
Last week, reclusive supreme leader Akhundzada defended his rule, including the criminal justice system, saying it was rooted in divine commands.
“The esteemed supreme leader stated that every decree he issues is based on consultation with scholars and derived from the Quran and Hadith [sayings of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad] and represents commands of Allah,” a government spokesman quoted Akhundzada as telling a gathering in Kandahar.
Akhundzada, who is based in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, has issued numerous decrees in accordance with his strict interpretation of Islamic law and principles, resulting in restrictions on freedom of speech and women's access to education and employment in the country.
The Taliban leader has banned education for girls beyond the sixth grade and barred most women from employment in the public and private sectors. Afghan women cannot travel by road or air without a chaperone and cannot visit public places such as parks, gyms or beauty salons.
On Tuesday, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) reiterated that restrictions on women are causing "long-term damage" in the impoverished, war-torn country.
The Taliban government is not officially recognized by any other country, and the UN has repeatedly rejected requests by Afghanistan's de facto authorities to represent the country internationally, largely because of its restrictions on women's rights.
Some information for this report provided by VOA.