Ruthless displacement

"I don't know where I'll be tomorrow. It's this uncertainty that is wearing me down," explains Zabihullah*. The 35-year-old lives in Peshawar, Pakistan, and is currently hiding from the Pakistani police to avoid being arrested and deported. 

Peshawar is located near the Durand Line, the border with Afghanistan. It was drawn over 130 years ago by British diplomat Sir Mortimer Durand, who wanted to demarcate British India, the territory of the Empire, from that of the Afghan kingdom. 

From one day to the next, millions of people found themselves in a completely different state as a result of the demarcation. Afghanistan, their homeland, was now on the other side of the border. In the decades that followed, families and entire tribes became estranged from one another. 

Today, the colonial border is the site of one of the largest mass displacements of our time. Zabihullah, the Afghan refugee, is among those being forced to leave. In Pakistan, a nation created around half a century after the Durand Line was drawn, there is no longer a place for him and hundreds of thousands of Afghans.  

Zabihullah grew up in Pakistan. His family fled there to escape the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and found a new home. To this day, they are more familiar with the streets of Peshawar than those of Kabul. 

No document can protect against deportation

All Zabihullah knows about Afghanistan is that it is ruled by the militant Islamist Taliban, who will probably not leave him alone because he makes music, has long hair and wears Western clothes.  

"I tried to apply for a new visa, but it was refused. My Pakistani ID card has expired, but it doesn't matter anymore. They are deporting anyone they can lay their hands on," explains Zabihullah over the phone. 

According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), at least 109,891 Afghan refugees were deported from Pakistan between 4 April and 3 May this year. But the mass deportation plan, created by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's government, has been in effect since 2023.   

As documented by UNHCR, 1,023,100 Afghans have left Pakistan since September 2023. Many were apprehended by Pakistani security forces using brute force and taken across the border.

It was not only refugees holding the so-called "Afghan Citizen Card" (ACC) who were affected in many cases, but also people with valid residence documents. The ACC is a temporary identity document that the Pakistani government distributes to all Afghan refugees who are not officially registered with the UNHCR. The card merely serves as identification, does not function as a working title or a path to citizenship and therefore offers little protection. 

Hunts for people of Afghan origin took place in several major cities. The insulting term namak haram (ungrateful, disloyal) is widespread and also regularly appears on social media. 

Pakistan's current government and its supporters are doing little to combat anti-Afghan racism, while one of their biggest enemies—former Prime Minister Imran Khan, who is also popular among Afghans—has been in prison since early 2024. Even before his term in office (2018-2022), Khan had campaigned for the rights and rapid naturalisation of Afghan refugees.  

Since last year, dramatic scenes have been unfolding at the Afghan border town of Torkham. Families are forced to say goodbye to each other in tears—many deported Afghans have Pakistani relatives. Time and again, people have staged sit-ins to protest the deportation measures. 

Not the first time

For Zabihullah, the issue of deportation is not now. His family was already deported to Afghanistan in 2016. "My elderly father was always afraid. He had no strength to hide from the police, which is why he left voluntarily with my mother and siblings," recalls Zabihullah. For a long time, the family struggled to cope in their native Kabul, where they now live. 

"The high crime rate and suicide bombings were part of everyday life. I was always afraid for my children," Mohammad Ayub, Zabihullah's father, told Qantara. When the militant Islamist Taliban returned to power in August 2021, the family feared for their daughters. "At the time, we were told that we would have to marry our daughters off to Taliban fighters," says Ayub. That, at least, hasn't happened to date. 

Zabihullah continues to hide in Pakistan. Sometimes with friends, sometimes with relatives; he too has Pakistani family members. He wants to stay in "his Peshawar", whose Pashto dialect he speaks most fluently, and hopes that the situation will improve soon.  

"Millions of Afghans live in Pakistan. We are an important economic factor. You can't just deport them all by force," he says. He also hopes that Islamabad will soon have to focus more on the conflict with India anyway. 

From kiosk owner to destitute

For the family of Mohammad Shah*, even if the situation improved now, it would be too late. Around three weeks ago, the police and military suddenly turned up outside his house in Peshawar. "They searched everything and wanted to see our documents," says Shah. Then all the information and assets were recorded. The family not only owned a house in Pakistan but also ran a kiosk. 

"The soldiers wanted to know whether my employees were Afghan or Pakistani," he says. After Shah stated the latter, the security forces left the family alone. 

But the peace only lasted a few days. "A week later, they came back in the morning. Their behaviour was much more brutal, they almost broke down our door and shouted at us," recalls Shah. The security forces ordered the family to pack only the essentials.  

Shortly afterwards, they were taken to the Torkham border post. "Suddenly we had to leave," says Shah. His whole family had valid UNHCR documents, but nobody cared. Today, the family lives in the northern Afghan province of Kunduz, where they are staying with relatives for the time being. They have no hope for a future there. 

Displacement harms all parties involved

"The vast majority of deported Afghans have no possessions in their home country. In fact, most of these people have no connection with Afghanistan because they have spent a large part of their lives in Pakistan. Many were born there and speak Urdu better than Farsi or Pashto," says the German-Afghan anthropologist Sayyed Jalal Shajjan, who once lived in Pakistan as a refugee himself. 

Shajjan emphasises that the current situation in Afghanistan makes the fate of the deportees even more difficult. "The Taliban regime is not looking after these people, while the presence of international NGOs in the country has declined massively in recent years. No one in Afghanistan nor in Pakistan wants to take responsibility," he says. 

However, he criticises the Pakistani government in particular: "Afghan refugees once found a home there because there were common religious and cultural characteristics. Pakistan could have turned these people into loyal citizens, but instead decided to expel them."

*Names changed for security reasons 

This text is an edited translation of the German original.