By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: The United Nations’ top refugee official in Afghanistan urged Pakistan on Friday to halt forced deportations and extend legal protections for vulnerable Afghans, warning that a surge in returns is overwhelming a nation already reeling from earthquakes and Taliban restrictions on humanitarian aid.
Arafat Jamal, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) representative in Afghanistan, called on Islamabad to uphold its decades-long tradition of sheltering Afghans, particularly women, children, and minorities who face grave risks if sent back.
In a statement from Geneva, he offered UNHCR’s support to develop mechanisms to identify those in need and expand legal migration pathways. “UNHCR stands ready to support Pakistan in developing practical mechanisms to identify vulnerable individuals and expand regulated migration pathways for Afghans,” Jamal said.
He pressed regional neighbors to ensure returns are voluntary, safe, dignified, and sustainable, emphasizing that “no one should be forced back to danger or to a country already stretched to absorb new arrivals.”
Pakistan’s intensified “Illegal Foreigners Repatriation Plan” has driven 554,000 Afghans back since April, including 143,000 in August alone. The pace spiked in early September, with nearly 100,000 crossing in a single week, straining border facilities and Afghanistan’s fragile capacity to cope. Since January, 2.6 million Afghans have returned from neighboring countries—many under duress, some after decades abroad, others arriving in their ancestral homeland for the first time.
The influx collides with fresh calamities. Recent earthquakes in western Afghanistan killed more than 2,000 and leveled homes in provinces now absorbing deportees. “It’s a crisis within a crisis,” Jamal said, describing families who fled Pakistan only to lose their homes to quakes days later. UNHCR has been providing cash grants, counseling, and supplies at border points and return communities.
But on Sept. 9, the agency shuttered eight cash-distribution centers serving 7,000 people daily after Taliban authorities barred Afghan women from entering U.N. compounds as staff. In Afghanistan’s conservative society, female aid workers are essential for conducting sensitive interviews and biometric scans with women, tasks men cannot perform under local norms. “This is a problem affecting the entire U.N., including UNHCR, and any agency head would tell a similar story,” UNHCR said in a statement. “It is not possible to serve women without female staff. We reiterate our call for the immediate lifting of these restrictions and for an urgent solution to be found.”
Speaking via video from Kabul to a Geneva briefing, Jamal called the closures a painful necessity. “This was an operational decision. It is not a decision taken to punish anyone or to make a statement, but it simply demonstrates that we cannot work without female workers in certain circumstances,” he said, according to Reuters. “It is a huge step, and it is creating an enormous amount of suffering for these people.”
The U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan warned that the ban jeopardizes “life-saving humanitarian assistance and other essential services for hundreds of thousands of people affected by a recent deadly earthquake,” per a statement reported by the Associated Press of Pakistan.
With resources stretched thin, Jamal appealed for $258.6 million to sustain aid for returnees. “Without additional funding, we will not be able to sustain life-saving assistance for Afghan families facing these overlapping crises,” he said.
In quake-ravaged areas, UNHCR is distributing thousands of tents and relief supplies, even in remote villages, while expanding protection programs. “We are distributing thousands of tents and other relief items, including in some of the most remote locations, while also scaling up protection assessments and programmes already in place in these provinces for returnees,” Jamal said.
He thanked donors but warned of a looming shortfall. “The agency remains grateful to governments, companies, and individuals who have already stepped up to support UNHCR’s work in Afghanistan and across the region,” he said. “But our resources are running out quickly.”
Pakistan’s deportation push, briefly paused after a 2023 bombing blamed on militants in Afghanistan, reflects mounting domestic pressures, including security concerns and economic strain from hosting an estimated 1.7 million registered Afghan refugees, plus many undocumented.
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