Others were threatened with being taken to prison,” she explains. A woman told me that she came because they told her that if she didn’t leave they would destroy, burn, and tear down her house. “The refugees have told us that they are stripped of everything,” which means that they arrive without the means to survive in a country where 15 million people - out of a population of about 40 million - already depend on humanitarian aid, she explains in a telephone conversation.ĭespite this, Gluck continues, they decide to leave Pakistan because “the authorities’ punishment for those who stay seems very severe. refugee agency), after visiting the same border crossing. It is an accusation that has also been confirmed by Caroline Gluck, who works for the UNHCR (the U.N. “Before crossing, they take away all their belongings, including jewelry and money, and only give them $100 (about €94) to leave Pakistan,” de Silva remarks. “I use the adjective ‘dire’ to describe what is happening, people returning to a place they do not want to return to, often with nothing,” explains Thamindri de Silva, national director of the NGO World Vision in Afghanistan, in a telephone interview with this newspaper after her visit to the Afghan Torkham crossing, on the border with Pakistan. Others, according to humanitarian workers on the ground, had been living in Pakistan for “more than 30 years” and have been forced to return with children and grandchildren who had never set foot in their homeland. Some of those returning had gone into exile after the Taliban returned to power in August 2021. Any refugees still living in Pakistan without the necessary paperwork are now under penalty of being expelled. Thousands of people have streamed across the border with Afghanistan every day since the deadline imposed on undocumented immigrants by the Pakistani authorities expired.
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