KABUL: Pakistan’s plan to expel most of its Afghan refugees this year will trigger a new humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, aid groups warn, as foreign funding has been slashed and existing infrastructure is inadequate to support returnees.

Pakistan is home to about 3 million Afghans, many of whom fled their country during decades of war. This number includes Afghans born in Pakistan, as well as those who sought shelter after the Taliban returned to power in 2021.

They are the main group facing deportation under the Pakistani government’s nationwide crackdown to force out foreigners living in the country illegally. The drive also includes Afghan Citizen Card holders, who were given a deadline to leave by March 31. Pakistani authorities confirmed last week they were not extending the deadline.

According to UN data, 800,000 people with Afghan Citizen Cards and 1 million undocumented Afghans are currently set to be expelled. Since the launch of the crackdown in 2023, more than 843,000 Afghans have returned to their homeland.

“If they come in hundreds of thousands or millions, it will create another crisis in the country,” Abdul Fatah Jawad, director of Ehsas Welfare and Social Services Organization, told Arab News.

“Finding houses, jobs, and educational opportunities will be very difficult for this huge number of returnees. Health is another challenge.”

Over the past two months, more than 200 health facilities across Afghanistan have been either suspended or closed, and another 200 will shut by June due to external funding shortfalls, which come amid massive US aid cuts under the Donald Trump administration.

The US, which invaded Afghanistan in 2001, was its largest aid donor. It has been cutting its support since 2021. Washington withdrew its troops from Afghanistan after the collapse of its Western-backed regime and imposed sanctions on the country’s new rulers. It also froze all projects after spending billions on two decades of military and development operations.

The moves led to Afghanistan’s economic collapse and the disruption of basic services such as healthcare, education, and food distribution. Millions of people were left without essential support due to the collapse of institutions and infrastructure.

As the economy continues to reel and new aid cuts are implemented, the return of refugees will place an additional strain on a system that may not be able to bear it.

“With the overall shortage of donors’ financial aid, especially after the recent US funding cuts, Afghanistan is not prepared to receive large numbers of returnees at once and provide them with housing and livelihood facilities. This is a significant challenge and will certainly exacerbate the ongoing crisis in the country,” said Fareed-ud-Din Noori, country director of Women for Afghan Women, a US-based organization that has been providing shelter, protection and food services to returnees.

“Several international and national organizations that provided critical services to returnees in resettlement and reintegration areas in the country were forced to either close their offices or suspend their projects due to unavailability of funds.”

The prospect of immediately finding jobs for hundreds of thousands of families is unlikely.

“With unemployment levels skyrocketing across the country and livelihood prospects looking grim, these returnees will face significant challenges in starting a new life in the country. Afghanistan’s aid-dependent economy will come under increasing pressure,” Noori said.

“The international community’s financial support is compulsory to enable a proper response to the influx of returnees.”

The Afghan government, too, does not have a clear plan of how to handle the number of returning nationals and integrate them with the rest of the society. Its Refugee and Repatriation Minister Mawlawi Abdul Kabir said last month that Afghanistan would encourage its nationals to come back to the country, but they should be given time and return “according to an organized and gradual mechanism instead of forced deportation.”

Dr. Tayeb Khan, economist and lecturer at Kateb University in Kabul, warned that refugee children in particular will be affected by the forced migration.

“All of this is putting increasing pressure on the country’s fragile economy, leading to greater dependence on humanitarian aid and deepening the poverty situation. The government alone will not be able to integrate children of these returnees into schools and provide them with essential health services,” he said.

“Most of these refugees have established their own lives and businesses over the years they have lived abroad … When they are forced to return to Afghanistan against their will, they will struggle with finding a job or work at first. Tens of thousands of people in the country are already finding it very difficult to get employed, especially after development projects were suspended following the withdrawal of international funding from Afghanistan.”

THE HAGUE: Philippine ex-president Rodrigo Duterte, facing International Criminal Court charges over his deadly narcotics crackdown, said “everything I did, I did for my country,” his daughter told reporters Friday.
Sara Duterte, who is also her country’s vice president, was briefing journalists at the detention center in The Hague after a long conversation with her father interned inside.
She also relayed that her father wants proceedings against him to move as quickly as possible, with the 80-year-old fearful of dying in custody.
“Everything I did, I did for my country. (I don’t know) whether that statement is acceptable or not, but I want it out to the world,” said Sara, relaying her father’s words.
The vice president would not be drawn as to whether this amounted to an admission of responsibility for the crimes her father is facing at the ICC.
It was the first reported comments from Rodrigo Duterte since he appeared tired and dazed at an initial appearance at the ICC, which he attended by videolink and barely spoke.
In a video posted when Duterte arrived in the Netherlands last month to face the charges, he had said “I will be responsible for all of this.”
Duterte stands accused of the crime against humanity of murder over his years-long campaign against drug users and dealers that rights groups said killed thousands.
In the prosecutor’s application for his arrest, he said Duterte’s alleged crimes were “part of a widespread and systematic attack directed against the civilian population in the Philippines.”
“Potentially tens of thousands of killings were perpetrated,” the prosecutor alleged of the campaign that targeted mostly poor men, often without proof they were linked to drugs.
In an interview with AFP earlier Friday, a lawyer for victims, Gilbert Andres, said loved-ones of those affected were seeking “truth and justice” from a potential trial.
The next hearing is scheduled for September 23, where the charges against him will be laid out, but Sara Duterte said her father was eager to get proceedings underway.
“He wants to go back to the Philippines. He said, ‘I am an old man. I can die anytime. But I want to die in my country’,” said Sara Duterte.