Pakistan extends visas for 1.45 million Afghans but denies deportations on hold

CNN —

Pakistan is extending the stay of nearly 1.5 million registered Afghan refugees – but its mass deportation of “illegal immigrants” will continue, authorities said.

Afghan refugees in Pakistan with Proof of Registration (POR) cards will be able to stay in the country until June 30, 2025, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s office said Wednesday.

The fate of 1.45 million refugees whose PORs expired at the end of June had previously been in doubt, with many fearing they’d be deported.

News of the extension came one day after the United Nations’ high commissioner for refugees visited Afghanistan and urged Pakistan to extend the POR cards.

“Glad that Pakistan’s tradition of hospitality is maintained,” Filippo Grandi wrote on X Thursday.

But Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs disputed the UN’s claims that Islamabad had put on hold its plan announced last October to deport undocumented Afghan refugees.

The “(Illegal Foreigners Repatriation Plan) remains in place and is being implemented in an orderly and phased manner,” spokesperson Mumtaz Baloch told CNN Thursday.

Trucks transporting Afghan refugees and their belongings are seen along a road heading toward the Pakistan-Afghanistan Torkham border on November 3, 2023.

Pakistan is home to one of the world’s largest refugee populations – most of them from Afghanistan. But the country has not always welcomed Afghan refugees, subjecting them to hostile living conditions and threatening deportation over the years.

More than 3 million Afghan refugees, including registered refugees and more than 800,000 undocumented people were living in Pakistan as of March 2024, according to UNHCR data.

Some fled their home country decades ago during the Soviet invasion, while other