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Coming home to war: Afghan refugees return reluctantly from Pakistan

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Coming home to war: Afghan refugees return reluctantly from Pakistan
Rahim Khan's return to Afghanistan 28 years after fleeing to Pakistan was not the homecoming he had dreamed of.
  • POSTED: 04 Sep 2015 07:50
afghan-refugee-children.jpg
Afghan refugee children, returning from Pakistan, watch a short video clip about mines at a mines and explosives awareness program at a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) registration centre in Kabul, Afghanistan September 2, 2015. REUTERS/Ahmad Masood
an-afghan-refugee-boy.jpg
An Afghan refugee boy sits on a truck after arriving at a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) registration centre in Kabul, Afghanistan September 2, 2015. REUTERS/Ahmad Masood
an-afghan-family.jpg
An Afghan family, returning from Pakistan, watch a short video clip about mines at a mines and explosives awareness program at a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) registration centre in Kabul, Afghanistan September 2, 2015. REUTERS/Ahmad Masood
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KABUL: Rahim Khan's return to Afghanistan 28 years after fleeing to Pakistan was not the homecoming he had dreamed of.

The 60-year-old is one of a growing number of Afghan refugees making the journey back with trepidation, as militant violence intensifies, yet feeling shunned by their adopted country as relations between the neighbors sour.

The rate of returnees has more than quadrupled this year, with 137,000 refugees going back to Afghanistan since January.

The number could spike further if the countries fail to agree by Dec. 31 to extend identity cards for two years and allow some 1.5 million registered refugees to stay in Pakistan.

The chill in relations, amid an offensive by Taliban insurgents which Kabul blames partly on Pakistan, has put the extension in doubt, along with the future of another million unregistered Afghans.

"First we had to leave here because of war. Now we are coming back to war and bombs," said Khan, speaking at a refugee center near Kabul where his Pakistan-born grandchildren were being taught the dangers of mines and roadside bombs.

Outside, the thump of exploding ordnance from a nearby army range echoed off arid hills, another reminder that Afghanistan appears no closer to peace than when Khan left during the Soviet occupation.

The dangers mean thousands of people have fled Afghanistan this year, many of them to Europe where governments are struggling to cope with an influx of migrants from the Middle East and beyond.

Yet Khan and others like him say they had little choice but to leave Pakistan.

His son Abdul Manan said their life as laborers and fruit vendors in Pakistan-administered Kashmir took a dramatic turn for the worse after Taliban gunmen massacred at least 141 students at an army school in northwest Pakistan in December.

Islamabad blamed the atrocity on militants based across the border, and anti-Afghan sentiment in Pakistan rose.

Manan said police started showing up at their home, asking to see their papers and threatening them with jail if they failed to pay 1,000-1,500 rupees (US$10-15) every few days.

"We decided to leave, there was no other option. We couldn't keep paying 1,500," said Manan. "This is our home and we have no other place to go."

Raja Shafqat Khan, senior official at the police headquarters in Muzaffarabad, administrative capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, said he was not aware of the family's complaints.

"As a policy, we do not harass Afghan refugees," he said.

Pakistan's refugee minister, Abdul Qadir Baloch, promised to renew ID cards if he got cabinet approval, and said Pakistan would "not use any coercive measures" to send Afghans back.

CHILL DEEPENS

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani spent much of his first year in office trying to improve relations and spur peace talks with the Taliban, widely believed to have close links with Pakistan's spy agency that helped create the movement in the 1990s.

But efforts stalled and the fledgling peace process collapsed after it was revealed in July that Taliban leader Mullah Omar had died two years earlier.

A spate of lethal attacks in Kabul that Ghani believes were planned by militants hiding on Pakistan's side of the porous, rugged border soured relations further.

Pakistani Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan has said he wanted all refugees repatriated.

"The cards will not be extended," he said. "They expire at the end of this year."

There are four months left for the neighbors to patch things up, but for now the mood is hostile.

Since Ghani pointed the finger of blame across the border for the attacks, Pakistani flags and currency have been burnt by protesters. Pakistani diplomats in Kabul say they are restricting their movements.

Seeking to assert itself after Omar's death, and exploiting a reduced foreign troop presence, the Taliban has stepped up its insurgency, leading to hefty clashes with Afghan forces and thousands of casualties.

Khan is moving in with his daughter-in-law's family in the northeastern province of Kunduz, because fighting is too fierce around his farmland in neighboring Baghlan.

As thousands arrive from Pakistan, others are seeking ways to leave.

Humanitarian organizations estimate that nearly one million Afghans have been internally displaced by fighting, and on the streets of Kabul, conversations quickly turn to departure.

Almost everyone knows someone attempting to get to Europe.

After Syrians and Eritreans, Afghans are the third biggest group of asylum seekers in Europe, making up about 11 percent of the 300,000 refugees and migrants who have made it across the Mediterranean this year, according to data from the U.N. refugee agency.

Ahmad Faheem, who runs the agency's Kabul reception center, said some of those leaving were among 3.5 million former refugees who returned from Pakistan soon after the United States toppled the Taliban in 2001, amid brief hope of a better future.

"Day by day the security situation is getting worse," said Faheem, who himself returned from Pakistan in 2002. "They have come here to try to settle, but if there is no security and no work, they leave again."

Coming home to war: Afghan refugees return reluctantly from Pakistan - Channel NewsAsia

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Afghan refugees return reluctantly from Pakistan...

So?
 
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Why not simply kick out Pakistanis from Pakistan then, let Afghans and others live respectfully in Pakistan.
Kicking them out forcefully might create problems for us later

I too dont like afghanis living here and speaking shit about Pakistan but i am not for forceful eviction of entire families
 
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Kicking them out forcefully might create problems for us later

I too dont like afghanis living here and speaking shit about Pakistan but i am not for forceful eviction of entire families

Buddy till now our acting nice, being polite and trying to please them has brought all problems for us. They will start loving you and respecting you once you start kicking their rears. Azma kay dekh lo.
 
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Why not simply kick out Pakistanis from Pakistan then, let Afghans and others live respectfully in Pakistan.


All of them should be sent back ... Along with the 2+ million illegal bangladeshi pole vaulters !


But Unfortunately this won't really happen ... There is no serious effort rig made nor any will power being shown by the govt!
 
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All of them should be sent back ... Along with the 2+ million illegal bangladeshi pole vaulters !


But Unfortunately this won't really happen ... There is no serious effort rig made nor any will power being shown by the govt!

Was there ever any government in Pakistan that cared about wishes and sentiments of Pakistanis?

The way things are happening and the way GoP is busy in Afghan TC, it won't take long when Afghans get dragged on streets of Pakistan. So GoP should act fast and sensibly, time to act actually like as they (ungrateful Afghans) see us.
 
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All of them should be sent back ... Along with the 2+ million illegal bangladeshi pole vaulters !
Those 2 million are not Bangladeshi.They may have born in the soil of Bangladesh,but they rejected our independence and choose to be patriot Pakistani rather than Bangladeshi.So you can't compare them with Afghan refugee,who are still Afghan citizen.
 
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Was there ever any government in Pakistan that cared about wishes and sentiments of Pakistanis?

The way things are happening and the way GoP is busy in Afghan TC, it won't take long when Afghans get dragged on streets of Pakistan. So GoP should act fast and sensibly, time to act actually like as they (ungrateful Afghans) see us.

Pakistan is the one of the most connected (wired) country in the region ... The anti afghan sentiment rose up after the Peshawar School Attack... The afghan behaviour,the anti PAK drama bazi in Afghanistan is only adding fuel to fire....


But irrespective .. Pakistanis won't drag Afghanis in the streets .. That isn't part of our culture.. But yes the hostility towards them will only increase in the society ...
 
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Those 2 million are not Bangladeshi.They may have born in the soil of Bangladesh,but they rejected our independence and choose to be patriot Pakistani rather than Bangladeshi.So you can't compare them with Afghan refugee,who are still Afghan citizen.
At-least get to learn the subject before writing. Those are patriot Bengalis who left their country to find jobs abroad and tens of thousands ended up in Pakistan. Pole vaulter was indeed a uncalled for word for those and I condemn that. I am not sure that the poster who used this profane word and those ho thanked him actually knew the meaning of it.

At any rate, I have no problem with Bengalis for they did not bring weapons or drugs or practices such as abduction for ransom or bacha baazai with them. Besides, they once were Pakistanis. I will prefer a Bengali over a Afghan any day. However, Afghans have to go back. They are not needed.

Afghans Quit Pakistan.jpg
 
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Those 2 million are not Bangladeshi.They may have born in the soil of Bangladesh,but they rejected our independence and choose to be patriot Pakistani rather than Bangladeshi.So you can't compare them with Afghan refugee,who are still Afghan citizen.
Just coz you immigrate to another country for economic benefits doesn't mean you are no longer citizens of the country you left !

The "patriotic" Bangali came to PAKISTAN during or immediately after the 71 war... Other "leeches" kept coming till the indians built a fence and the sea became dangerous ...

I remember being told stories how bangladeshis used to bribe indian BSF to cross the border and when Rangers would turn them back they (BSF) would shoot them...



Anyways ... These 2 million are "illegals" and not citizens of PAKISTAN.

Pak is for Pakistani citizens not illegal scum... We rather have more Rohingya or other real refugees rather than ungrateful,backstabbing bangali n afghanis.
 
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Pakistan is the one of the mist connected (wired) country in the region ... The aa to afghan sentiment rise up after the Peshawar School Attack... The afghan behaviour,the anti PAK drama bazi in Afghanistan is only adding fuel to fire....


But irrespective .. Pakistanis won't drag Afghanis in the streets .. That isn't part of our culture.. But yes the hostility towards them will only increase in the society ...

Sometimes I really think to make video clips of Afghans living in Islamabad and share here on this forum, the two entirely different types of Afghans living in Pakistan. But sadly I don't get time for that and I don't have resources too I am an ignorant when it comes to latest gadgets and stuff.

Well the tragedy for me being a Pakistani is (I should not be sharing this but I don't have a choice then to raise my voice, I hope some sensible Afghan reads this), I buy bread from an Afghan Tandoor (Clay Oven or Gas oven shop for bread) and distribute it in poor Afghans sitting in line in front of that shop, it hurts me when I see their kids barefoot without shoes, I have never hesitated in sharing my children's stuff with them, but it boils my blood when I see their countrymen burn my country's flag, hurl abuses at us, it makes me hate the ones (Afghans) who are living in bungalows in Islamabad because they don't give a sh*t about their own poor countrymen living in kachi abadi, and burn flag of my country who on and off does feel for their poor. Tell me how long can anyone expect me (Pakistani) to be nice to them? Ya to may bilkul he baygairat ho jao to mumkin hai ya phir aik din may inhay dutkarna shuru kar do ga. Mayra (every Pakistani) kasoor kya hai bahi? Kya sirf Hum he reh gay hain galia kha kay bhi muskurany k liay?
 
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