• First batch likely to leave for Balochistan today
• DIG says 16,138 Afghan citizen card holders living in city
• Lawyer Moniza Kakar voices concern over crackdown, harassment of refugee families

KARACHI: The first batch of over 250 Afghan nationals, including women and children, is likely to be repatriated to their home country via Balochistan on Saturday (today), pending road clearance from authorities, officials said on Friday.

They said that the 256 Afghan nationals, who possessed Afghan Citizenship Cards (ACC), have been picked up and kept at a repatriation camp in Sultanabad following a crackdown launched by the city administration and law enforcement agencies for forced repatriation of some 16,138 ACC holders residing in Karachi.

The officials said the Illegal Foreigners’ Repatriation Plan (IFRP) began on Nov 1, 2023 and on completion of its Phase-I, the interior division had on Feb 13, 2025 conveyed the prime minister’s directives to the Sindh government to initiate repatriation of all ACC holders to their country of origin.

While the deadline for their voluntary return has ended on March 31, the government has launched their “forced repatriation” from April 1.

As per IRFP prepared by the Sindh home department and seen by Dawn, a control room and ‘holding points’ have been set up in Karachi and Jacobabad with ‘transit point’ in Sakrand in Shaheed Benazirabad with total capacity of 1,500.

The main camp/centre for repatriation has been set up at Ameen House in Sultanabad.

DIG-South Syed Asad Raza told Dawn on Friday that so far, 286 Afghans had been brought to Ameen House. As many as 30 of them were returned/released as they possessed Proof of Registration (PoR) cards. The PoR Card is an identity document for Afghan refugees that entitles them to legally remain in Pakistan. The card is valid throughout Pakistan. Registered Afghans must carry their PoR cards at all times and present it to law enforcement agencies on demand.

He said that as per joint mapping exercise conducted by police’s Special Branch in collaboration with other law enforcement agencies, there were a total of 16,138 ACC holders in Karachi with highest prevalence in districts of East and West.

Giving details of each district, the South police said there were a total of 11,233 ACC holders in East, 2,792 in West, 910 in Korangi, 396 in Malir, 406 in Central, 203 in Keamari, 120 in South and 78 in City district.

‘Harassment and bribery’

However, lawyer and founder member of ‘Joint Action Committee for Refugees’ Moniza Kakar told Dawn that they had reports that so far, 500-600 had been detained in ‘crackdowns’ in various localities of the metropolis.

She claimed that the Afghans had also complained about incidents of “harassment and demands for bribes by officials”.

The lawyer said they had already filed petitions in Islamabad, Peshawar, Quetta and Rawalpindi and were waiting for their outcome to initiate the same process in Sindh as well.

She said there were 55,000 Afghans in the Sohrab Goth Afghan Camp, who mostly work in New Subzi Mandi and other areas but after the crackdown, they were not going for work for fear of being ‘detained’.

The lawyer pointed out that there were a total of 850,000 ACC holders in the country who were given such cards in 2017, out of them reportedly 70,000 were living in Karachi.

Published in Dawn, April 5th, 2025