Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Government has decided
to launch a major operation to evict thousands of illegal Afghans from the
provincial capital Peshawar, said a senior official on Saturday.
The move by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa or KPK Government
came amid the ongoing deportation of illegal Afghan nationals residing in
Pakistan. The crackdown has so far forced about 340,000 Afghans in recent weeks
to leave Pakistan after spending years in the neighbouring country.
“The KPK Provincial Government has decided to launch a
grand operation for the eviction of illegal Afghans from this northwestern city
of Peshawar,” said the official.
Pakistan’s caretaker government has previously said
security concerns were behind the deportation order. Islamabad has claimed that
Afghan nationals had carried out 14 of the 24 major terrorist attacks that have
taken place in the country this year.
However, the Taliban-led Government in Kabul has
rejected Pakistan’s claim.
On Friday, a joint meeting of Deputy Commissioner
Peshawar Fahd Wazir and Senior Superintendent of Police of Operations
department in Peshawar Kashif Abbasi chaired a special meeting to discuss the
issue and made a foolproof plan for evictions of the illegal Afghans.
The Peshawar district Administration and police set up
special teams under the supervision of divisional SPs to evict the illegal
Afghans from the Provincial capital Peshawar.
The special teams have been provided with complete
lists and data on the illegal Afghans residing in Peshawar.
The teams would arrest Afghan nationals without
documents and would shift them to Juma Khan Holding Camp Nasir Bagh from where
they would be deported to their country via the Torkham border.
According to officials, the Afghans holding Proof of
Registration and Afghan Citizen Cards have been exempted from deportation and
special teams have been formed for verification of their documents.
Many Afghans who have been in Pakistan for decades say
they should be given more time, as they have no home in Afghanistan. Afghans
say they do not know how they will start a new life from scratch.
An estimated 1.7 million Afghans were living in
Pakistan illegally when the crackdown was launched last month by the
government.
Afghanistan has set up a commission in Kabul to deal
with repatriations from Pakistan. Bilal Karimi, the spokesman for the refugee
commission of Afghanistan’s Taliban-led administration, said so far 340,608
Afghans have returned.
Currently, the World Health Organisation is providing
health facilities to Afghans returning through the border crossings at Torkham
in northwestern Pakistan and Chaman in the southwest.
In a statement on Thursday, the WHO said the “sudden
and increased flux of such returnees, along with other related factors, poses
significant public health concerns”.
It also warned of the risk of disease outbreaks and
transmission of wild poliovirus at the points where Afghans are entering the
country.
The WHO also appealed for USD 10 million to provide
health services targeting 700,000 Afghan returnees.
PTI
