Documented Afghan migrants in Karachi say they are suffering from the effects of Pakistan’s deportations
KARACHI: Rubina Hidayatullah has seen it all since moving to Pakistan from neighboring Afghanistan with her three-year-old son in 2005 to seek treatment for her ailing husband.
She has lived a difficult life as a refugee in Karachi, a city in southern Pakistan. Her husband died just a few years after moving to Pakistan. She raised her three children, two of whom were born in Pakistan. And she worked long hours as a housekeeper to earn her living.
But nothing could have prepared her for this challenge that came two months ago.
Just when she was hoping that her two sons would both get jobs and she would get a chance at a break in life, the Pakistani government announced deportations for “illegal immigrants” on October 3rd and on November 1st. He urged them to leave the country voluntarily. Facing forced expulsion. Although the government says the policy targets all illegal aliens, it disproportionately hits Afghans, who make up the largest group of immigrants to Pakistan. More than 370,000 people have returned home or been deported since the announcement of the deportation campaign.
Many of the defectors told Arab News they had documents but were fleeing for fear of arrest or persecution. Many Afghans who remained went underground. Reports of police harassment and arrests are widespread, and many Afghans say they have been fired from their jobs or asked to leave their homes by their landlords.
“One boy was sent to work in a restaurant, and the other was apprenticed in a workshop at the age of nine,” Hidayatullah, 50, a registered refugee, told Arab News from his small apartment in Karachi. “Since Afghanistan, [deportation] This problem started and we both got fired from our jobs. ”
Many Afghans also lost their homes.
Maulana Ikramullah Khan, another registered refugee, said she lived in the city’s Ancholi area for nearly 10 years before losing her home and moving to the Sohrab Goth slum.
“The landlord came and asked for my ID,” Khan said. “When I showed him mine, [refugee] “You are an Afghan. We are not going to rent our house to an Afghan,” he said. So he told me that the month was almost over and I should leave the house. ”
“It’s very hard for a person to live in the same place for 31 years, get married there, have kids there, and then 31 years later find yourself being treated like this. [you’re told]”Get out of here or we won’t give you your home or we won’t evacuate your home.”
The already precarious educational situation of refugee children has also taken a hit.
Syed Mustafa, principal of Karachi’s Jamal Uddin Afghani School, said: “Our school has also been affected, and we used to have 300 students, but now that number has reduced to less than 100.” he said. “Currently, most landlords are not renting to Afghans.”
The difficulties come as various government officials, including the prime minister and army chiefs, have publicly said that Afghans are behind the terrorist attacks and economic deterioration in Pakistan. The interior minister accused Afghan nationals of being involved in organized crime and responsible for 14 of the 24 suicide attacks in Pakistan this year. Last month, Prime Minister Anwar-ul-Haq Kakar said the move to expel hundreds of thousands of illegal Afghans was a move by the Taliban-led Kabul government to take action against militants using Afghanistan to attack Pakistan. He said this was a response to being passive.
Haji Abdullah, chairman of Karachi’s Refugee Council, acknowledged that the government’s new policy has left Afghans unemployed and facing late-night raids.
“These were Afghan refugees who were legal and working for a company, but the company fired them, saying the government had recommended it.” [Pakistanis] Don’t hire Afghans,” he told Arab News.
“They are now unemployed and sitting at home hungry. They should be allowed to go back to work and earn money for their children.”
The Sindh Home Office could not be contacted for comment. Karachi police spokesperson Abrar Hussain Baloch said the state was only fulfilling its responsibility to “act against illegal immigrants.”
He denied “any action that could harm or affect the lives of legal refugees.”
Meanwhile, refugees like Hidayatullah continue to live in anxiety and fear.
When asked if she would leave for Afghanistan because of the difficulties caused by the expulsion movement, she replied: “I have never been to Afghanistan, and I cannot go there.”
“I don’t have anyone to go see…I don’t have a brother or a father in Afghanistan.”