Afghans hide in Pakistan, live in fear of forced deportation

“I’m afraid”, sobbing.

The life of the age of 10 is limited to its one-bedroom house in Islamabad and a dirt road for it. Since December, she has not been to her local school if she decided that he would no longer take Afghans without a real birth certificate. But even if she could go for classes, she said she would not.

“I got sick once and I heard a police officer seeking Afghan children,” she cries when she tells us that her girlfriend’s family had been sent back to Afghanistan.

Not her real name was stuffed – all the names of Afghans, quoted in this article, were changed for their safety.

The capital of Pakistan and the neighboring city of Rovalpindi witness the splash of deportations, arrests and detentions of Afghans, the UN says. It is estimated that more than half of three million Afghans in the country without documents.

Afghans describe the life of constant fear and about daily police raids in their homes.

Some said the BBC that they were afraid that they were being killed when they returned to Afghanistan. This includes families under the US resettlement program, which the Trump administration has been suspended.

Pakistan is disappointed with how the resettlement programs continue, says Philip Candler, a representative of the UN refugee agency in Islamabad. The United Nations International Migration Organization (IOM) states that 930 people were sent to Afghanistan in the first half of February to double the picture two weeks earlier. At least 20% of those who deported from Islamabad and Ravalpindi were documentation from the UN refugee agency, that is, they were recognized by people in need of international protection.

But Pakistan is not a participant in the refugee congress and previously stated that he did not admit that Afghans who live in the country as refugees. The government stated that its policy is aimed at all illegal foreign citizens, and the term for their exit is coming. This date hesitated, but now set on March 31 for those who do not have valid visas, and June 30 for those who have letters of resettlement.

Many Afghans were horrified among confusion. They also say that the visa process can be difficult to move. The Nabila family believes that they have only one option: to hide. Her father Hamid served in the Afghan troops before the Taliban absorption in 2021. He crashed from tears, describing his sleepless nights.

“I served my country and I am useless now. This work condemned me,” he said.

His family without visas is not on the resettlement list. They talk about their phone calls to the UN refugee agency unanswered.

The BBC appealed to the Agency for Comments.

Earlier, the Taliban government said the BBC, all Afghans should return because they could “live in a country without fear.” He claims that these refugees are “economic migrants”.

But Ah UN report in 2023 There are doubts about the Taliban government. He found that hundreds of former state officials and members of the Armed Forces were allegedly killed, despite the amnesty.

The Taliban government’s guarantees are little assured by the Nabila families, so they decided to run when the authorities are nearby. Neighbors offer each other shelter because they all seek to avoid returning to Afghanistan.

The UN counted 1245 Afghans who were arrested or detained in January throughout Pakistan, more than twice the same period last year.

The stuffing says that Afghans cannot be forced. “Do not expel Afghanov from your homes – we are not on the choice, we are forced to be here.”

In their house there is a sense of sadness and loneliness. “I had a friend who was here, and then was deported to Afghanistan,” says the mother of Nabila Mariam.

“She was like a sister, a mother. The day when we separated, there was a difficult day.”

I ask the nabi what she wants to do when she’s older. “Modeling,” she says, giving me a serious look. Everyone in the room smile. The tension thaws.

Her mother whispered to her, there are many other things she can, an engineer or lawyer. The dream of modeling is the one she could never chase the Taliban government. With their restrictions on the education of girls, the proposals of her mother will also be impossible.

Pakistan has a long record for receiving the Afghan refugees. But cross -border attacks arose and ignited the tension between two neighbors. Pakistan blames them for militants based in Afghanistan, which the Taliban government denies. Since September 2023, Pakistan launched their plan for “illegal foreigners”, 836,238 people were returned to Afghanistan.

Among this modern deportation phase, some Afghans are held at Haji’s camp in Islamabad. Ahmad was at the last stages of the US relocation program. He tells us when President Donald Trump suspended him for inspection, he extinguished Ahmad’s last hope. The BBC saw that its letter from the Western, Christian non -profit group in Afghanistan appears.

A few weeks ago, when he went shopping, he called. His three -year -old daughter was on the line. “My child called, come to the grandmother, police, the police are coming to our door,” he says. The extension of his wife’s visa was still waiting and she was busy with the police.

Ahmad ran home. “I couldn’t leave them behind.” He says he was sitting in a minibus and waited for the hours when the police continued their raids. Wives and children of his neighbors continued to enter the vehicle. Ahmad started calling from his husbands, asking him to take care of them. They have already escaped into the forest.

His family was spent three days in “non -peculiarities,” says Ahmad, who claimed that they were given only one blanket for the family, and one piece of bread a day, and that their phones were confiscated. The Pakistan government states that it guarantees that “no one is harsh in the process of repatriation.”

We are trying to visit the Haji camp to check Ahmad’s account, but we deny the authorities. The BBC appealed to the Pakistani government and the police for an interview or statement but no one was available.

Fearing that he was detained or deported, some families decided to leave Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Others tell us they just can’t afford.

One woman claims that she was in the last stages of the US relocation scheme and decided to move with her two daughters to the atickets, 80 km (50 miles) west of Islamabad. “I barely afford bread,” she says.

The BBC has a document confirming interviews with moms in early January. She claims that her family is still observed in her vicinity.

The US Embassy’s press -secretary in Islamabad said he was in “close communication” with the Pakistan government about the status of Afghan citizens on the way of relocation. “

Outside the Haji goal, the woman is waiting. She tells us that she has a real visa, but her sister ended. Now her sister is being kept in the camp with her children. Officers did not allow her to visit her family, and she was horrified to deport them. She starts crying: “When my country was safe, why would I come here to Pakistan? And even here we can’t live peacefully.”

She points to her own daughter sitting in her car. She was a singer in Afghanistan, where the law claims that women cannot hear how they act around the house, not to mention singing. I turn to her daughter and ask if she is not singing. She looks. “No.”