More than 10,000 Afghans living in Pakistan rushed to the borders on Tuesday, just hours before a deadline for 1.7 million people to leave Pakistan voluntarily or face arrest and deportation.
The Pakistan government has said it would begin arresting undocumented Afghans and taking them to new holding centres from Wednesday, from where they will be processed and forcibly returned to Afghanistan.
Despite a gruelling economic crisis in Afghanistan, coupled with the Taliban government's edicts on women and girls' rights, Afghans in Pakistan are being forced to return to their home country. "This procedure does not require much time as they don't possess passports and visas and don't need to pass through immigration. In simple words, they are passing through a procedure of deportation," he told AFP on condition of anonymity.
"We are not going back home, because my education in Afghanistan would come to a grinding halt," she told AFP in Peshawar. More than 80 percent have left via the northern Torkham border in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where the majority of Afghan migrants live. Lawyers and activists have said the scale of the crackdown is unprecedented, appealing for more time for Afghans -- some of whom have lived for decades in the country -- to be given more time to pack up with dignity.
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