Afghans hiding in Pakistan live in fear of forced deportation

“I’m afraid,” Sobs Nabila.

The 10-year-old life is limited to her home with a one-bedroom in Islamabad and for a dirt road outside it. Since December, she has not been to her local school when she decided she would no longer accept Afghans without a valid Pakistani birth certificate. But even if she can go to lessons, Nabil says she wouldn’t.

“One day I got sick and heard that the police were coming to look for Afghan children,” she cries, as she tells us that her friend’s family has been sent back to Afghanistan.

Nabila is not her real name – all the names of Afghans, cited in this article, have been changed for their safety.

The capital of Pakistan and the neighboring city of Ravalpindi witnessed a leap of deportations, arrests and detainees of the Afghans, the UN says. He estimates that more than half of the three million Afghans in the country have been undocumented.

Afghans describe a life of constant fear and close to daily police raids on their homes.

Some told the BBC that they were afraid to be killed if they returned to Afghanistan. These include families in a US resettlement program that has been suspended by the Trump administration.

Pakistan is disappointed with how long the movement programs are accepted, says Philip Kandler, a representative of the UN Agency in Islamabad. The International UN Migration Organization (IOM) says 930 people were sent back to Afghanistan in the first half of February, doubled the figure two weeks earlier. At least 20% of Islamabad and Ravalpindy deported have had documentation from the UN Refugee Agency, which means that they were recognized as people who need international protection.

But Pakistan is not a party of the Refugee Convention and earlier said it did not recognize the Afghans living in the country as refugees. The government said its policies are aimed at all illegal foreign citizens and a deadline for leaving is outlined. This date is hesitant, but is now set on March 31 for those without valid visas and June 30 for those with resettance letters.

Many Afghans are terrified of confusion. They also say that the visa process can be difficult to navigate. The Nabila family believes that they have only one option: to hide. Her father, Hamid, served in the Afghan military, before the ingestion of the Taliban in 2021, he fell into tears, describing his sleepless nights.

“I served my country and now I’m useless. This work is doomed,” he said.

His family is without visas and is not on a displacement list. They tell us that their phone calls to the UN Refugee Agency are left unanswered.

The BBC addressed the comment agency.

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

But a UN report in 2023 Set the assurances of the Taliban government. He found that hundreds of former civil servants and members of the Armed Forces were killed despite the general amnesty.

The guarantees of the Taliban government have a little reassurance for the Nabil family, so they choose to run when the authorities are nearby. Neighbors offer asylum as everyone is trying to avoid recovery in Afghanistan.

The UN believes that 1,245 Afghans were arrested or detained in Pakistan in January, more than doubling the same period last year.

Nabila says the Afghans should not be forced. “Do not kick Afghans from their homes – we are not here. We are forced to be here.”

There is a sense of sadness and loneliness in their home. “I had a friend who was here and then deported to Afghanistan,” says Nabila’s mother Mariam.

“She was like a sister, a mother. The day we parted was a difficult day.”

I ask that she wanted to do when she was older. “Modeling,” she says, giving me a serious look. Everyone in the room smile. The tension is thawed.

Her mother whispers that there are many other things she could be, an engineer or a lawyer. The dream of Nabil for modeling is one that could never pursue the Taliban government. With their restrictions on the education of girls, her mother’s suggestions would also be impossible.

Pakistan has long records in Afghan refugees. But cross -border attacks have grown and increased tensions between the two neighbors. Pakistan accuses them of fighters based in Afghanistan, which the Taliban government denies. Since September 2023, the year in which Pakistan started its “Plan for the Repatriation of Illegal Foreigners”, 836 238 persons have already been returned to Afghanistan.

Against the background of the current phase of deportations, some Afghans are held at the Haji camp in Islamabad. Ahmad was in the last stages of the United States Resettlement Program. He tells us when President Donald Trump stopped him for a review, he repaid Ahmad’s “last hope”. The BBC saw what it seems to be his letter from a Western, non -profit Christian group in Afghanistan.

A few weeks ago, when he was shopping, he received a call. His three -year -old daughter was online. “My baby called, Come the grandmother’s police are here, the police are coming to our door,” he says. Extending his wife’s visa was still hanging and she was busy praying to the police.

Ahmad ran home. “I couldn’t leave them behind.” He says he is sitting in a van and waits for hours as police continue their raids. The wives and children of his neighbors continued to embark on the vehicle. Ahmad started receiving calls from his husbands, asking him to take care of them. They had already fled to the forest.

His family was held three days under “unthinkable conditions”, says Ahmad, who claims that they were only given one blanket to a family and one piece of bread a day and that their phones were confiscated. The Pakistani government says it guarantees that “no one is abused or harassed during the repatriation process.”

We are trying to visit the Hajji camp inside to check Ahmad’s account, but they are refused entry from the authorities. The BBC addressed the government of Pakistan and the police for an interview or statement, but no one was provided.

Frightened by being detained or deported, some families have chosen to leave Islamabad and Ravalpindi. Others tell us they just can’t afford.

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

The BBC saw a document confirming that it had an interview with IOM in early January. She claims that her family is still witnessing almost daily raids in her neighborhood.

A spokesman for the US Embassy in Islamabad said he was in “close communication” with the Pakistan government on the status of Afghan citizens on the US resettlement roads. “

Outside Hajji Lager’s gates, a woman is waiting. She tells us she has a valid visa, but her sister has expired. Her sister is now held in the camp, with her children. Officers would not allow her to visit her family and she was terrified that they would be deported. She starts crying, “If my country was safe, why would I come here in Pakistan? And even here we can’t live peacefully.”

She points to her own daughter sitting in their car. She was a singer in Afghanistan, where law is said that women cannot be heard to speak outside their home, let alone sing. I turn to her daughter and ask if she still sings. She stares. “No.”