KARACHI: For Ayesha Naimatullah, who lives in a small apartment on the outskirts of the southern Pakistani city of Karachi, Eid Al-Fitr is usually a joyous occasion despite the limited earnings of her husband, who sells fruit at a nearby market.
But this year is different as the family of seven faces imminent deportation to Afghanistan, amid an expulsion drive aimed at foreigners that started in November.
Last month, the Pakistan government said it had started mapping Afghan nationals with Pakistan-issued citizen cards for deportation as part of phase two of its expulsion drive in which around half a million so-called undocumented Afghan refugees have already been expelled. The new post-Eid campaign will mainly target 600,000 refugees who hold Pakistan-issued Afghan citizenship cards (ACCs).
Following the central government’s policy, the government in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province, of which Karachi is the provincial capital, last week announced a crackdown on refugees holding ACCs, and their deportation is likely to begin shortly after the three-day Eid holiday.
“How can there be happiness [on Eid] when they are expelling us? Everyone is happy, but Afghans are all sad,” Naimatullah told Arab News. “They have made yellow cards (ACCs), which Pakistan itself made for us, but they are expelling us.”
In October 2023, Pakistan announced phase one of the ‘Illegal Foreigners’ Repatriation Plan’ with a 30-day deadline for “undocumented” Afghan refugees to leave the country or be subject to deportation, putting 1.4 million refugees at risk.
In phase two of the ‘repatriation plan,’ Pakistan-issued ACC holders will be expelled from the country after the Eid Al-Fitr festival, a major Muslim holiday that fell on April 10. Phase three is expected to result in the deportation of UNHCR-issued Proof of Registration (PoR) card holders.
Until November last year, before it began the deportation drive, Pakistan was home to over 4 million Afghan migrants and refugees, about 1.7 million of whom were undocumented, according to the government. Afghans make up the largest portion of migrants, many of whom came after the Taliban took over Kabul in 2021, but a large number have been present since the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
The expulsion drive started after a spike in suicide bombings last year which the Pakistan government — without providing evidence — said mostly involved Afghans. Islamabad has also blamed them for smuggling and other militant violence and crime.
At the time, cash-strapped Pakistan, navigating record inflation and a tough International Monetary Fund bailout program, also said undocumented migrants had drained its resources for decades.
Despite the challenges facing migrants, Pakistan is the only home many of them know and a sanctuary from the economic deprivation and extreme social conservatism that Afghanistan is grappling with.
While hundreds of thousands have left Pakistan since the expiry of a November 1, 2023 deadline, the South Asian country still hosts around 1.35 million registered Afghan refugees, with an additional 803,200 possessing ACCs, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).
However, these ACCs now stand null and void, despite no mention of an expiry date.
“EID OR GRIEF”
Naimatullah, who has two daughters and three sons, recounted her parents’ migration to Pakistan following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, saying she and her children has been born in Karachi but still faced the threat of deportation.
“We are in a very difficult situation, neither do we have a place [to live] in Afghanistan, nor is there any life there,” she sighed. “There is nothing at all.”
Kamila Bibi, 16, echoed her mother’s concerns, particularly with regards to her education.
The Taliban administration since coming to power has closed most secondary schools to girls, stopped female students attending universities and stopped many Afghan women working for aid groups and the United Nations.
“There [Afghanistan], a ban has also been imposed on girls’ education. If we go there, all our hard work will go to waste, and my education will also be ruined,” Kamila said.
“I study for six to eight hours a day, and all this hard work of mine could go to waste if they expel Afghans,” she added.
“Eid doesn’t hold much meaning [to us] because my studies are being disrupted. Education is Eid for me, it means everything … Our studies will also be ruined and our future will be destroyed [if deported].”
Kamila’s 14-year-old brother, Naseebullah, who dreams of becoming a doctor, said the threat of expulsion had cast a shadow over the 6th grader’s aspirations.
“It will become difficult to achieve that dream and I may never be able to become a doctor,” he said.
Waseema Hashmatullah, a 65-year-old housewife who survives on the earnings of her son, a daily wager, shared the same sentiment as Naimatullah’s family.
“We are sitting with this same worry. There is nothing there [in Afghanistan],” she said. “This is the worry this Eid.”
Hashmatullah’s daughter, Zarghona, a single mother and a registered refugee, joined her paternal family in Pakistan after a divorce in which she lost custody of her children to a husband who lives in Afghanistan.
“I don’t know how we spent these fasting days [in Ramadan] and now Eid is coming, I don’t know how this Eid will pass,” she said, worried about whether her younger siblings would be able to continue studying upon returning to Afghanistan.
“My entire family is in this dilemma these days. We don’t know whether it is Eid coming for us or grief.”
For Afghans in Pakistan, deportation threat clouds Eid Al-Fitr holiday
https://arab.news/g7vgb
For Afghans in Pakistan, deportation threat clouds Eid Al-Fitr holiday
- Pakistan has announced it will start expelling Afghans with state-issued citizen cards after Eid Al-Fitr
- Pakistan has already expelled around half a million ‘undocumented’ Afghan refugees since last November
Pakistan deputy PM says hopeful of finalizing US trade deal ‘in days’
- The US is Pakistan’s top export destination, with shipments totaling 5.44 billion dollars in fiscal year 2023-2024
- Deputy PM Ishaq Dar says both sides have recently held discussions relating to textiles, digital trade and agriculture
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan deputy prime minister and foreign minister, Ishaq Dar, said on Friday that his country was hopeful of finalizing a trade deal with the United States “in days.”
Pakistan and the United States (US) have been engaged in talks after Washington announced a 29 percent “reciprocal tariff” on Pakistani exports in April. Islamabad said the move, paused in June for a 90-day period, may undercut its fragile, export-led recovery.
The US is Pakistan’s top export destination, with shipments totaling $5.44 billion in fiscal year 2023-2024, according to official data. From July 2024 to February 2025, exports rose 10 percent from a year earlier.
Speaking at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington, the Pakistani deputy premier said both sides have recently held discussions relating to textiles, digital trade and agriculture.
“Pakistan seeks better market access in the US. On our part, we are working toward granting greater market access to the US products in the large Pakistani markets,” he said.
“We hope to conclude a mutually beneficial trade agreement at the earliest, hopefully in days not in weeks.”
Under US President Donald Trump, Washington has attempted to renegotiate trade agreements with many countries that he threatened with tariffs over what he calls unfair trade relations. Many economists dispute Trump’s characterization.
Dar also met Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday.
“Met with Pakistani Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister @MIshaqDar50 today to discuss expanding bilateral trade and enhancing collaboration in the critical minerals sector,” Rubio said on X.
“I also thanked him for Pakistan’s partnership in countering terrorism and preserving regional stability.”
The Pakistani foreign ministry also said Dar “appreciated the pivotal role” by Trump and Rubio “in de-escalating tensions between Pakistan and India by facilitating a ceasefire.” The State Department statement did not mention India.
Trump has repeatedly taken credit for the India-Pakistan ceasefire he announced on social media on May 10 after Washington held talks with both sides. India disputes Trump’s claims that the ceasefire resulted from his intervention and trade threats.
An April 22 militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir killed 26 men and sparked heavy fighting between the nuclear-armed Asian neighbors in the latest escalation of a decades-old rivalry. India struck Pakistan on May 7 and the two nations exchanged hostilities, killing dozens across three days. The ceasefire was declared on May 10.
New Delhi blamed the April attack on Pakistan, which denied responsibility and called for a neutral investigation. Washington condemned the attack but did not blame Islamabad.
For one filmmaker, telling Pakistan’s untold stories has become a path to healing
- Insulting remark pushed Athar Abbas to leave corporate job, find healing in the stories of strangers
- Abbas’s social media documentaries spotlight working-class lives, mental health stigma in Pakistan
ISLAMABAD: Mobile phones, data cables and memory cards sprawl across the editing table in Athar Abbas’s modest Islamabad apartment.
It’s an organized chaos the 38-year-old filmmaker fully embraces — a far cry from the mental turmoil that once engulfed him.
Abbas, a former commercial producer, now documents the lives of ordinary Pakistanis in short, emotionally charged videos he publishes on social media. His mini-documentaries — raw, personal and deliberately unpolished — have attracted tens of thousands of followers across platforms, racking up over a million views in the past year.
But Abbas’s foray into digital storytelling wasn’t born of ambition. It was a survival tactic.
He began filming after quitting his job at a construction company, where a senior colleague dismissed his work as “pathetic.”
The insult gnawed at his confidence and spiraled into a depressive episode. Eventually, Abbas turned to the one outlet that had always brought him calm — the camera.
“I picked up my camera and started making stories,” Abbas told Arab News. “And unintentionally, I realized that maybe for an artist, there’s no therapy greater than his art.”
Pakistan, a country of over 240 million people, faces a chronic shortage of mental health services.
According to the World Health Organization, more than 24 million people in Pakistan are in need of psychiatric support. Yet the country has only around 500 trained psychologists and 400 psychiatrists, roughly one mental health professional for every 260,000 people.
The stigma around mental illness remains deeply entrenched, especially for men. Talking about emotional vulnerability is often seen as weakness, a perception Abbas says is reinforced in professional environments.
“He feels that his manly personality will be affected,” he said, referring to why many Pakistani men hesitated to express emotions, especially those that communicated perceived weakness.
“So he doesn’t even share that he has a problem with something.”
In Pakistan’s corporate sector, long working hours, harsh managerial practices and lack of mental health policies have contributed to high stress levels.
A 2024 review by the Pakistan Society of Human Resource Management found that most companies lacked formal emotional wellness programs.
Creative professionals, Abbas said, often bore the brunt of toxic leadership.
“If you talk to anyone in the creative field, they will tell you they are distressed because of senior management’s behavior,” he said.
“Unfortunately, it greatly affects mental health.”
A separate 2025 study in the Pakistan Social Sciences Review noted that while some younger professionals are more aware of mental health issues, institutional support remains weak, leaving them vulnerable to burnout and depression.
‘UNTOLD PAKISTAN’
For Abbas, the path to stability came through storytelling.
He launched a series titled Untold Pakistan, filming everything from a street vendor’s hustle to a single mother’s struggle for dignity. In one video, a man named Kamran Ali cycles from Germany to Layyah, Punjab, only to learn of his mother’s death upon arrival.
“Storytelling became a way to survive,” Abbas said.
His films resist sensationalism. There are no stunts or celebrity cameos. Instead, they dwell in moments often overlooked: fatigue, memory, longing, resilience. The comment sections on his pages are peppered with viewers opening up about their own traumas, some for the first time.
Abbas recalls a message from a young man in Lahore who said one of the videos gave him the courage to speak to his father about something he’d been avoiding for a long time.
“That one message made all the late nights worth it,” Abbas said.
After 15 years of directing ads, music videos and corporate content, Abbas has no interest in going back. His priorities have shifted.
“I didn’t set out to become an influencer,” he said. “I just needed to breathe.”
Pakistan’s Air Karachi in talks with Chinese jetmaker for aircraft as it gears up for operations
- New airline is backed by 100 Pakistani businessmen who pooled $17.6 million in seed funding
- Air Karachi is also exploring aircraft deals with Boeing and Airbus to launch domestic flights
KARACHI: Air Karachi, Pakistan’s new private airline in the making, has engaged the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC) for the supply of airliners to start its flight operations, the group chairman Hanif Gohar told Arab News on Friday.
Spearheaded by a group of leading businessmen from Pakistan’s southern port city, the airline is also negotiating with global aerospace giants like Boeing and Airbus for the acquisition of at least three passenger aircraft. It was launched in November 2024 by 100 stakeholders with Rs5 billion ($17.6 million) in seed money.
“We are talking with COMAC regarding the 919, as well as with Boeing and Airbus, to acquire the aircraft,” Gohar said, referring to a narrow-body passenger jet developed by China.
Business leaders in the South Asian nation have stepped up to fill the gap as the state-run Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has become a liability for the cash-strapped government, which is now making a second attempt to privatize the national carrier.
“We will start our flight operations as soon as we reach an agreement with any of the suppliers, whoever comes first,” Gohar said when asked about the timeline to start operations.
Gohar, a business tycoon himself, expects a deal within the next month.
He said Air Karachi would initially fly three aircraft domestically, and the fleet would later be expanded with four more planes to start international flights within a year.
The idea to launch a business-backed airline was conceived to develop an entity that can operate with efficiency and financial autonomy amid growing challenges faced by PIA.
Last month, Air Karachi received its Regular Public Transport (RPT) license from Pakistan’s Civil Aviation Authority.
The airline has been modeled after the success of Air Sial, another private carrier launched by industrialists in Sialkot, the manufacturing hub of Pakistan’s exportable sports and surgical goods.
Pakistan approves Skills Impact Bond for youth employment through private investment
- New ‘pay-for-success’ model will fund market-relevant skills training for youth
- PM Sharif calls for roadmap to boost domestic and overseas job opportunities
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Friday approved Pakistan’s first Skills Impact Bond, a new financing model aimed at mobilizing private investment to equip young people with market-relevant skills and improve their access to employment, both at home and abroad.
The approval came during a high-level meeting in Islamabad focused on youth employment. According to a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office, the initiative is part of a broader government effort to align vocational training with labor market demands and make Pakistani youth self-reliant through entrepreneurship and income-generating opportunities.
The model, also known as “pay-for-success,” links funding to independently verified outcomes such as job placement or minimum income levels.
“Pakistan’s talented youth are the country’s greatest asset,” the prime minister said at the meeting. “By equipping them with education and skills tailored to market needs, we will transform the future of this nation.”
Sharif instructed federal ministries and agencies to accelerate skills training, expand employment outreach through digital platforms and present a comprehensive roadmap based on estimates of domestic and overseas job opportunities for Pakistani youth.
The prime minister approved a public awareness campaign to promote the use of the Digital Youth Hub, which has already registered over 500,000 users.
The platform currently lists over 47,000 job openings in Pakistan and more than 100,000 overseas, along with 2,000 scholarship opportunities.
He also emphasized preparing skilled workers specifically for international job markets and directed relevant departments to offer foreign language training for countries with high demand for labor.
US state secretary meets deputy PM, lauds Pakistan’s counterterror role amid thaw in relations
- Dar, Rubio discuss trade, investment, counterterrorism and regional stability in first face-to-face meeting
- The Pakistani deputy premier calls his country an attractive destination for US businesses and investors
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar held his first face-to-face meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington on Friday, with the US official acknowledging Pakistan’s role in promoting international peace and his Pakistani interlocutor seeking broader ties between the two countries.
The meeting is widely viewed as yet another sign of a diplomatic reset after years of estrangement between Islamabad and Washington, particularly during the Afghan war, where diverging perspectives deepened mistrust. High-level bilateral exchanges gradually faded as the US withdrew from Afghanistan.
Earlier this week, however, US State Department Spokesperson Tammy Bruce hinted at a bilateral meeting between the two countries without disclosing details. According to Pakistan’s foreign office, Dar and Rubio held detailed discussions on bilateral relations and explored opportunities for cooperation in trade, investment, agriculture, technology and minerals.
Counterterrorism and regional peace efforts were also high on the agenda.
“Met with Pakistani Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister @MIshaqDar50 today to discuss expanding bilateral trade and enhancing collaboration in the critical minerals sector,” Rubio said in a social media post after the meeting. “I also thanked him for Pakistan’s partnership in countering terrorism and preserving regional stability.”
Dar responded by reaffirming Pakistan’s commitment to strengthening ties with Washington.
“We wish to broaden and deepen our relationship with the United States across the political, economic and security domains,” he said according to an official statement. “Pakistan remains a credible partner for peace, progress and prosperity in the region and beyond.”
Last month, President Donald Trump hosted Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, for a rare one-on-one lunch at the White House in a visit that followed an intense, four-day India-Pakistan military standoff, which ended with a US-brokered ceasefire on May 10.
Dar also paid tribute to Trump for his role in de-escalating the tensions between the two South Asian nuclear-armed neighbors.
The revival of military and political dialogue between the two countries comes as Pakistan is also holding trade talks with Washington after the Trump administration imposed 29 percent “reciprocal tariffs” on Pakistani exports in April.
Pakistan’s finance chief, Muhammad Aurangzeb, who also visited Washington this month, said the two countries were working to shift their economic ties “from one focused on trade to one anchored in long-term investment.”
After meeting US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, Aurangzeb said priority sectors had been identified, including minerals, mining, artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency regulation.
During Friday’s meeting, Dar also described Pakistan as an attractive destination for US investors and highlighted the role of the Pakistani-American diaspora in strengthening bilateral ties.
“We are optimistic about progress in the ongoing trade dialogue,” he said. “There is alignment between our regional peace objectives and strategic interests.”
Dar is currently on an eight-day visit to the United States, where he kept a busy schedule in New York and chaired several high-profile United Nations Security Council meetings under Pakistan’s rotating presidency this month.
He highlighted the need for multilateralism, peaceful dispute resolution and his country’s own strategic concerns during his engagements at the world body.
