Pakistan has deported more than 600 refugees in the past 3 days to the Taliban to acquire Afghanistan from Sindh province in a fresh crack down on migrants amid the blazing threat from the Taliban to the country.
On Saturday, Pakistan deported 302 refugees back and on Monday 303 refugees have been deported back to Afghanistan. This has included 63 women and 71 children. Pakistan is set to send another 800 refugees in the coming days.
From last year itself Pakistan has started deporting Afghans for illegally entering the country but started the arrest and detention in October. About 1400 Afghans consisting of 129 women and 178 children been detained in Karachi and Hyderabad. The highest number of arrests have been made in Pakistan since the Afghans started flying off Afghanistan.
Umer Ijaz Gilani, an Islamabad-based lawyer, said deporting Afghan asylum seekers was a “clear violation of the non-refoulment principle” (forcibly returning refugees or asylum seekers where they may be persecuted). He urged the Pakistan government’s National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR) to direct state authorities to stop the deportations.
Karachi based human right lawyer, Moniza Kakar said that around 400 of the arrested Afghans had valid visas on their passports or proof of residence cards, which were confiscated by the police before they were jailed.
The director of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Farah Zia, condemned the treatment of Afghans, particularly the arrests of women and children “because their vulnerability is compounded by their gender and age and lack of connections with local networks”.
Pakistan has not adopted the United Nation Refugee Convention 1951, which confers a legal duty on countries to protect people fleeing serious harm. About 250,000 Afghans have been arrived in Pakistan since the Taliban has captured the Afghanistan.
Last year, the commission wrote a letter to the government asking to develop a more humane policy towards Afghans refugees. To this, the Sindh authorities have defended their actions as said by the spokesperson Murtaza Wahab, “The government is only taking action against illegal immigrants; those living without a valid travel document”.
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