Over 170,000 Afghan nationals left Pakistan for various countries, including their native ones, ever since Pakistan asked all undocumented refugees to leave by October 31, 2023, reports say.
As many as 6,500 Afghan nationals left Pakistan through the Torkham border on Sunday alone, they said.
According to officials, a total of 174,358 Afghan nationals left for Afghanistan since September this year, adding that voluntary repatriation was still underway, but the number was dropping with each passing day.
“There was a huge number of illegal immigrants at the border crossing soon after the deadline expired. It is now coming down,” an official involved in processing voluntary repatriation of Afghan nationals was quoted as saying by reports.
The reports say that hundreds of prisoners from across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab were also sent back along with thousands of men, women and children. Afghan nationals imprisoned for involvement in petty crimes were also being deported, reports said.
In order to convince them, the Pakistan government has also assured Afghan families that it would bear all expenses for their repatriation. Some illegal Afghan nationals in Nowshera were willing to go back but unable to do so due to a lack of resources, the reports said.
Last week, the Pakistan government had requested all the countries that had expressed interest in accepting Afghans nationals living in Pakistan, to expedite the process of granting visas and other related documents to them.
Meanwhile, there were Afghans who did not wish to go back to their native country claiming they had nothing there to fall back to, but a large number of them had no option but to go back to Afghanistan, which is being governed by Taliban* ever since the US forces left the country in early 2021.
*Taliban is under UN sanctions
*Taliban is under UN sanctions