Pakistan criticised for the ‘forced’ repatriation of Afghans

Campaigners claim UN refugee agency abandoned needy

KABUL // Pakistan is forcing hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees back to their country using coercion, threats and abuse, Human Rights Watch said yesterday.

In a report, the monitor ac- cused the UN refugee agency of complicity by promoting the exodus.

Last year, hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees left Pakistan, a 12-year high that the rights group called the “world’s largest unlawful mass forced return of refugees in recent times”.

Aid workers and Afghan officials worry that those returning are going back to a country in conflict and economic crisis.

Titled Pakistan Coercion, UN Complicity: The Mass Forced Return of Afghan Refugees, the report said a combination of insecure legal status, the threat of deportation during winter and police abuses – including extortion and arbitrary detention – had left Afghan refugees with no choice but to leave.

“After decades of hosting Afghan refugees, Pakistan in mid2016 unleashed the world’s largest recent anti- refugee crackdowns to coerce their mass return,” said Gerry Simpson, a refugee researcher at HRW.

“Because the UN refugee agency [UNHCR] didn’t stand up publicly to Pakistan’s bullying and abuses, international donors should step in to press the government and UN to protect the remaining Afghan refugees.”

The report also said that by doubling cash grants to Afghans returning from Pakistan to US$400 (Dh1,470), it was encouraging the exodus. “The UN agency should end the fiction that the mass forced return of Afghan refugees from Pakistan is, in fact, mass voluntary return,” Mr Simpson said.

“If UNHCR feels that giving cash to refugees is the best way to help them survive in Afghanistan, it should at the very least make clear it does not consider return to be voluntary.”