\u2022 Afghan nationals with citizenship cards to be relocated out of Islamabad, Rawalpindi
\n\u2022 POR-holders allowed to stay on till June, but not in twin cities<\/p>\n
ISLAMABAD: The government has devised a plan to move registered Afghan refugees out of Islamabad and Rawal\u00adpindi and gradually repatriate them back to their country, sources with knowledge of the plan told Dawn.<\/p>\n
Authorities have also been directed to implement the plan without making any public announcement in this regard.<\/p>\n
The plan was finalised in a series of meetings presided by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif last week. One of the meetings was also attended by Chief of Army Staff Gen Syed Asim Munir, a source in the PM Office confirmed.<\/p>\n
Under phase-I of the relocation plan, Afg\u00adhan nationals having the Afghan Cit\u00adizens Card (ACC) will be \u201cimmediately\u201d moved out of Islamabad and Rawalpindi.<\/p>\n
They will then be sent back to Afghan\u00adis\u00adtan alongside illegal and undocumented refugees.<\/p>\n
ACC is an identification document iss\u00adu\u00aded to registered Afghan nationals by Nadra.<\/p>\n
According to the UN\u2019s International Organisation for Migration (IOM), ACC gives temporary legal status to Afghans during their stay in Pakistan.<\/p>\n
However, the federal government makes the decision on the duration for which the ACC would remain valid.<\/p>\n
Afghan nationals who have a Proof of Reg\u00ad\u00adistration Card (PoR), which allows them to stay anywhere in Pakistan legally, will be repatriated in the second phase of the plan.<\/p>\n
They would be \u201cmoved out\u201d of Islam\u00ada\u00adbad and Rawalpindi, but wouldn\u2019t be dep\u00adorted immediately, sources said, adding that the cabinet had allowed POR-holding Afghans to remain in the country till June.<\/p>\n
The total number of Afghans living in Pakistan with PoR and ACC is estimated to be 1.3 million and 700,000, respectively.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Afghans awaiting resettlement in third countries will be moved out of Islamabad and Rawalpindi by March 31.<\/p>\n
According to sources, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will coordinate with embassies and other global organisations to expedite the resettlement process.<\/p>\n
Any Afghans who couldn\u2019t be resettled in a third country will also be sent back to Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
According to Shawn VanDiver, the founder of #AfghanEvac, a leading coalition of resettlement and veterans groups, 10,000 to 15,000 Afghans are in Pakistan waiting for visas or resettlement in the US.<\/p>\n
It is unclear what number of these Afghans live in Islamabad and Rawalpindi. However, the decision to move them out of the twin cities is expected to create a host of logistical challenges for the refugees, many of whom have to visit foreign missions and offices of global humanitarian organisations in Islamabad.<\/p>\n
Many of the Afghan nationals awaiting resettlement to a third country are also enrolled in language centres in the federal capital.<\/p>\n
The Ministry of Interior will lead the relocation and deportation plans, and intelligence agencies, IB and ISI, will monitor their implementation.<\/p>\n
Pakistan started a nationwide crackdown in 2023 to deport millions of Afghans, which the government said were living illegally in the country.<\/p>\n
According to IOM, 805,991 Afghans have returned to their country since Sept 15, 2023.<\/p>\n
Human rights activists and civil society members have criticised the forced repatriation and filed a petition in the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n
The petition was last heard by a seven-judge bench headed by Justice Amin-ud-din Khan on January 7.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u2022 Afghan nationals with citizenship cards to be relocated out of Islamabad, Rawalpindi \u2022 POR-holders allowed to stay on till June, but not in twin cities ISLAMABAD: The government has devised a plan to move registered Afghan refugees out of Islamabad and Rawal\u00adpindi and gradually repatriate them back to their country, sources with knowledge of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5404,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5403"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5403\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5405,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5403\/revisions\/5405"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}