ISLAMABAD (AP) — Afghanistan urged Pakistan on Wednesday to cease arresting Afghan refugees, after 250 have been detained by counterterrorism officers and different businesses for not having journey paperwork.
Thousands and thousands of Afghans fled to Pakistan through the 1979-1989 Soviet occupation of their nation, creating one of many world’s largest refugee populations. Since then, Pakistan has been internet hosting Afghans, urging them to register with the United Nations and native authorities to keep away from danger of deportation.
Afghanistan’s embassy in Islamabad stated the continued apprehension of refugees within the capital, the garrison metropolis of Rawalpindi and neighboring areas persists.
A diplomatic delegation met police to debate the problem and discovered that regulation enforcement officers have detained 250 refugees in current days, together with these with U.N.-backed paperwork giving short-term authorized keep in Pakistan and freedom of motion.
The embassy stated it’s working towards clarifying the authorized standing of the detained Afghans and expediting their launch.
“The Govt of I.R of Pak is urged to stop the arrest of Afg refugees & formally deal with its issues, as it could adversely impression bilateral relations btw the 2 nations,” it stated in a tweet.
The embassy additionally confirmed {that a} feminine athlete, Arzoo Ahmadi, was briefly detained in southern Sindh province. She was in Pakistan participating in a martial arts occasion and was arrested by police on Tuesday morning for not having journey paperwork. It was reported that she was taken to a girls’s shelter and later launched.
Greater than 1 million registered Afghan refugees stay in Pakistan, though the numbers getting into the nation leaped after the Taliban swept again to energy in Afghanistan in August 2021.
Over 100,000 Afghans have arrived in Pakistan to keep away from persecution at residence, though the Taliban have introduced a pardon and urged them to not go away the nation.
Final December, photographs of locked up Afghan youngsters in a Karachi jail triggered outrage. They have been amongst at the very least 1,200 Afghan nationals detained in a number of raids for getting into the southern port metropolis with out legitimate journey paperwork.
The detentions underscored the strained relations between the 2 neighbors. Clashes have erupted at border cities and each international locations accuse one another of not doing sufficient to fight militancy.