- 1.3 million Afghan refugees obtained proof of the registration card: HCR
- Pakistan has been hosting millions of Afghans for five decades.
- Peshawar welcomes the greatest number of Afghans than any other city.
Peshawar: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) welcome the greatest majority of Afghan nationals residing in the country, which was recently invited to leave Pakistan before March 31, The news reported.
Pakistan is currently welcoming 2.1 million documented Afghans. There are hundreds of thousands of undisped Afghan nationals also living in Pakistan for decades.
However, a majority of them returned to their country as part of a voluntary repatriation plan in 2023.
“Of the total of 2.1 million, 1.3 million Afghan refugees are those who have obtained proof of recording cards. More than 52% of them are in KP, “said the spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Qasier Afridi The news.
He added that around 800,000 Afghans, which had obtained ACC cards and the majority of them lived in KP.
POR card holders were recorded with the support of the UNHCR in 2006 while the ACC card holders were documented in 2017 after the launch of the National Action Plan.
Pakistan has been hosting millions of Afghans for about five decades. Hundreds of thousands of them have returned to their country in recent years, but more than 2.1 million have lived in KP and other provinces.
The Pakistani authorities established March 31 as the deadline for all illegal Afghans as well as those who had ACC cards to return to their country.
There are tens of thousands of Afghans, who were born in Pakistan and who barely gone to their homeland in their lives.
Many of them are again concerned as the deadline approaches quickly from the sacred month.
Peshawar welcomes the greatest number of Afghan nationals than any other city. Thousands of them have made their own business while others have been working in the city for several decades. They live in many urban, suburban and rural areas as well as the local population.
In 2023, the government had only set the deadline of October 31 for unregistered foreigners, after which a large number of undocumented Afghans returned to their country of origin via Torkham and other border crossings.
Special camps have been installed in Chamkani, Nowshera and other districts in the country for those who return to Afghanistan voluntarily.
No measure was taken during the previous driving against the Afghans, who had POR or AC cards as well as valid visas.
In addition, the government had prevented the authorities from moving against those, the cases of which were underway with the UNHCR and they planned to leave for a third country due to a serious threat to their life in Afghanistan.
