UN Calls Pakistan to Stop Mass Deportation of Afghans

 

She said, “We are extremely alarmed by Pakistan’s announcement that it plans to deport ‘undocumented’ foreign nationals remaining in the country after Nov 1, a measure that will disproportionately imp­act more than 1.4 million undocumented Afghans who remain in Pakistan.”

 

The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, and the International Organisa­tion for Migration (IOM) have already documented a sharp increase in returns to Afghanistan since the deadline was announced on Oct 3. A recent flash report by UNHCR and IOM placed the number of Afghans who left Pakistan in the month up to Oct 15 at 59,780 individuals.

 

Seventy-­eight per cent of those returning cited the fear of arrest as the reason for leaving Pakistan.

 

The spokesperson stated that deportations without individualised determinations of personal circumstances, including any mass deportations, would amount to refoulement in violation of international human rights law, in particular the convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, to which Pakistan is a state party, and of international refugee law.

 

And as winter approaches, any mass deportations are bound to deepen the dire humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, as it grapples with the devastating impact of a series of earthquakes that struck Herat province this month, leaving at least 1,400 people dead and 1,800 injured, as per official figures, spokesperson said.

 

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Human­itarian Affairs, close to 30 million people currently need relief assistance in Afghanistan, out of a population of 43 million, and 3.3 million are internally displaced.

 

“We remind the de facto authorities of the international human rights obligations that continue to bind Afghan­istan as a state and their obligations to protect, promote and fulfil human rights.” OHCHR spokesperson said.