AFGHANISTAN accused Pakistan of seeking to expel all Afghan refugees today, complaining its nationals were being arrested, searched and ordered to relocate by police.

The Afghan embassy in Islamabad said today Afghans had been arrested in the capital and in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, and ordered to move to other parts of Pakistan.

“This process of detaining Afghans, which began without any formal announcement, has not been officially communicated to the embassy through any formal correspondence. Ultimately, officials from Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that there is a definitive and final plan to deport/remove all Afghan refugees not only from Islamabad and Rawalpindi but also from the entire country in the near future,” the embassy claimed.

There are 1.45 million registered Afghan refugees living in Pakistan, about 900,000 migrants with documentation and hundreds of thousands believed to be unregistered. Refugees fled the 20-year war begun by the United States and its allies when they invaded Afghanistan in 2001, or the eventual victory in that war by the Taliban, who returned to power in 2021. Though no foreign country formally recognises the Taliban government, most of Afghanistan’s neighbours, including Pakistan, have allowed it to appoint diplomats to the embassies on their territory.

Taliban authorities said they were concerned at the unilateral nature of Pakistan’s deportation plans and their speed. Pakistani authorities say refugees will be allowed to remain until June 30, and that they have been in contact with Kabul over the “smooth repatriation of Afghan nationals,” including those who had been promised sanctuary in third countries if this is not facilitated by those countries by that date.