
European Union leaders have been forced to act and have cobbled together a migration deal in Brussels that looks in trouble before the ink is dry. It is proposed that secure centres be set up for the processing of asylum claims from those rescued at sea. These ‘controlled centres’ will be set up by individual countries on a purely voluntary basis but thus far there is no country willing to put itself forward to be first to establish what everybody is avoiding calling concentration camps.
Why should Pakistan be interested or concerned with any of this? Because it is home — still — to probably the largest undocumented body of refugees in the world, the Afghans, some of whom have been here for two generations and know no other home. The templates being devised in Europe for the management of immigrants and refugees are going to be closely watched by other vulnerable countries, Pakistan included. It is not impossible to conceive of another wave fleeing Afghanistan in the event of civil war reigniting there. What Europe is grappling with today may be Pakistan’s problem — again — tomorrow. And are we any better prepared than were the Europeans? No.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 2nd, 2018.
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