By Mushtaq Ali
TORKHAM BORDER, Pakistan, April 30 (Reuters) – Saleha Bibi, 40, was one of hundreds of Afghan refugees waiting at the Pakistani border on Thursday to be repatriated to Afghanistan – a country she has never seen – as fears rise for their safety due to fresh fighting between the neighbours.
Islamabad wants all Afghan nationals to leave the country except for those with valid visas and has expelled more than 2 million out of 3 million back to their home country since 2023. Many are second- and third-generation refugees who fled violence at home in the 1980s.
The Afghans have been waiting for days for Pakistani officials to let them through the border amid fresh fighting between the two countries. Several Pakistanis, including women and children, were wounded in South Waziristan district by mortar shelling in a fresh round of attacks from Afghanistan on Wednesday, Pakistan said.
“We never imagined that one day we would be asked to leave,” Bibi said, adding she had never been to Afghanistan.
“We are going back with broken hearts,” she told Reuters, sitting in a temporary camp set up for the refugees at the Torkham border crossing in northwest Pakistan.
She said she was worried about her children’s well-being, their safety and their education once they were back in Afghanistan. She has five sons and two daughters.
“What hurts me most is the lack of educational opportunities for my children in Afghanistan.”
Her father was just 17 when he migrated to Pakistan, Bibi said.
REFUGEES’ PLIGHT MADE WORSE BY FIGHTING
Pakistan and Afghanistan have seen the worst fighting this year since the Taliban took over in Kabul in 2021.
Islamabad says Kabul gives refuge to Islamist militants who attack inside Pakistan. Afghanistan denies this, saying the militancy is Pakistan’s domestic problem.
Long queues of trucks loaded with the refugees and their luggage have been stationed on both sides of the road leading to the border crossing.
Burhan Khan, 24, said he and his family had been waiting at the crossing for over 12 days. Others have waited even longer, he said.
Khan feared the fighting between the two countries would make it worse for the refugees.
“Women and children have been sitting inside the vehicles for nearly two weeks,” he said.
(Reporting by Mushtaq Ali on Torkham Border; Writing by Asif Shahzad; Editing by Sharon Singleton)
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