“Going back there would be sentencing my family to death,“ said Hayatullah, a 46-year-old Afghan deported via the Torkham border crossing in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in early 2024.
But they carry little hope of starting over in the impoverished country, where girls are banned from school after primary level.
He paid a bribe to cross the Chaman frontier, “like all the day labourers who regularly travel across the border to work on the other side”.
Relative security
“Compared to Islamabad, the police here don’t harass us as much,“ he said.
Samad Khan, a 38-year-old Afghan who also spoke using a pseudonym, also chose to relocate his family to Peshawar.
“We have no relatives in Afghanistan, and there’s no sign of life. There’s no work, no income, and the Taliban are extremely strict,“ he said.
“I paid 50,000 rupees (around $180) to an Afghan truck driver,“ he said, using one of his Pakistani employees’ ID cards to cross the border.
“I started a second-hand shoe business with the support of a friend. The police here don’t harass us like they do in Lahore, and the overall environment is much better,“ he told AFP.
It’s hard to say how many Afghans have returned, as data is scarce.
Migrant rights defenders in Pakistan say they’ve heard of such returns, but insist the numbers are limited.
“When individuals return to areas with limited access to basic services and livelihood opportunities, reintegration can be challenging,“ said Avand Azeez Agha, communications officer for the UN agency in Kabul.
They might move on again, he said, “as people seek sustainable opportunities”.
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