Afghan refugee crisis

Socioeconomic burden of hosting world’s largest population of Afghan refugees continues to take its toll on Pakistan

The socioeconomic burden of hosting the world’s largest population of Afghan refugees continues to take its toll on Pakistan, especially when the country is struggling to provide services and deliver general good governance to its own citizens. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates there are now 3.5 million Afghans living in Pakistan, only 1.3 million of whom are registered as refugees with the relevant authorities. Meanwhile, at least 775,000 Afghans are unregistered or illegal migrants.

Over three-quarters of the illegal migrants live in the border provinces — 53% in K-P and 24% in Balochistan. However, there are still sizable numbers in the other provinces and regions. Even Azad Jammu and Kashmir is host to over 4,500 illegal Afghans. While the numbers had shown a declining trend for several years, the Taliban’s return to power has also seen a significant increase in new refugee inflow. Over 600,000 new Afghan refugees have entered Pakistan since the fall of Kabul in August 2021, while only 16,000 Afghans have returned home since then.

Meanwhile, less than 55% of the UN’s 2023 funding requirement for registered Afghan refugees had been met at last count, illustrating why Pakistan is being unduly burdened with somebody else’s problem. Afghanistan was ‘broken’ by the Soviet Union and the US in the 1980s and again by the US-led Nato coalition for most of the 21^st century. Yet it is Pakistan that has had to handle almost all of the fallout caused by these Western countries.

Today, many of them are refusing to finance the Afghan government or refugee relief operations in Pakistan, and it is unlikely that they will change tune anytime soon. The US, the UK and Australia — all contributors to the Afghan refugee crisis — have recently tried to take anti-refugee measures relating to their own countries that rights groups and even their own courts have decried as inhuman and sometimes outright illegal, including sending refugees to dangerous third countries for detention and processing.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 26^th, 2023.

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