Reports indicated that Pakistan was compelled to take back a large number of illegal refugees due to the closure of the Afghanistan border that prevented all of them from successfully entering their native country.
The ongoing movement of Afghan nationals from Pakistan to Afghanistan has caused lots of troubles for thousands of people, including women and children.
Last night, Torkham border gates were closed prematurely by the Afghan authorities leaving scores of illegal immigrants under the open sky for several hours. It compelled the Pakistani authorities to take the risk of shifting the people to Peshawar instead of abandoning them at the border crossing, the reports said.
The immigrants were being processed as a matter of routine for their repatriation to Afghanistan when the Afghan authorities closed the border crossing for movement at 7 pm (local time), hours ahead of the schedule, leaving as many as 284 individuals stranded at the crossing, reports said.
“We were going on with our plan since we knew the gates would close at 9 pm.” On Sunday, around 892 families had already returned when Afghan authorities closed the gate and stopped the cross border movement around 7 pm, an official involved in processing the illegal immigrants’ repatriation was quoted as saying.
Reports say as many as 284 individuals, who had completed the process for repatriation, were waiting for their turn to cross the gate when the movement was stopped, leaving them there for hours under the open sky.
“We could not leave the 284 individuals including women and children at the border. At the same time, we could not take the risk of keeping those families in Landi Kotal’s holding area due to security concerns. (Eventually,) they were moved to Peshawar’s holding area in the dark, " Pakistani officials were reported as saying.