SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan: Thousands of Afghans have crossed the border from Pakistan in recent days, the United Nations and Taliban officials said, as Islamabad ramped up pressure for them to return to Afghanistan.
Pakistan last month set an early April deadline for some 800,000 Afghans carrying Afghan Citizen Cards (ACC) issued by Pakistan authorities to leave the country, another phase in Islamabad’s campaign in recent years to repatriate Afghans.
Families with their belongings in tow lined up at the key border crossings of Torkham in the north and Spin Boldak in the south, recalling similar scenes in 2023 when tens of thousands of Afghans fled deportation threats in Pakistan.
“In the last 2 days, 8,025 undocumented & ACC holders returned via Torkham & Spin Boldak crossings,” the UN International Organization for Migration (IOM) said in a post on social media platform X on Monday.
“IOM stands ready to scale up its response at key border points with forced returns expected to surge in the coming days,” it said.
Taliban officials also said thousands of people had crossed the border, but at lower rates than the IOM reported.
Refugee ministry spokesman Abdul Mutalib Haqqani told AFP that 6,000-7,000 Afghans had returned since the start of April, saying “more than a million Afghans might return.”
“We are urging Pakistan authorities not to deport them (Afghans) forcefully — there should be a proper mechanism with an agreement between both countries, and they must be returned with dignity,” he said.
Fleeing successive conflicts
The UN says nearly three million Afghans live in Pakistan, many having lived there for decades after fleeing successive conflicts in their country and after the Taliban’s return to power in Kabul in 2021.
“We were forced to return. Two days ago I was stopped and asked for documentation when they were searching houses,” 38-year-old Abdul Rahman told AFP after passing the Spin Boldak crossing with his family from Quetta, in Pakistan’s southwest, where they lived for six years.
“They didn’t even gave me an hour (to leave), I sold a carpet and my phone to make some money to come here, all my other belongings we left behind,” he said.
Human rights activists have been reporting for months the harassment and extortion of Afghans in Pakistan, a country mired in political and economic chaos.
More than 1.3 million Afghans who hold Proof of Registration cards from the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, have also been told to move outside the capital Islamabad and the neighboring city of Rawalpindi.
Human Rights Watch has slammed “abusive tactics” used to pressure Afghans to return to their country, “where they risk persecution by the Taliban and face dire economic conditions.”
Ties between the neighboring countries have frayed since the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan.
Islamabad has accused Kabul’s rulers of failing to root out militants sheltering on its soil, a charge that the Taliban government denies, as Pakistan has seen a sharp rise in violence in border regions with Afghanistan.

LONDON: The son of a British couple currently detained in Afghanistan has asked the US for assistance in obtaining their release, saying they have “never heard one accusation or one charge.”

Peter Reynolds, 79, and his wife Barbie, 75, who have lived in Afghanistan for 18 years, were arrested on Feb. 1 by the Taliban in Bamiyan province over what they believed was a flight permit issue.

However, despite being initially told it was a minor problem and that they would be released, the pair, along with Chinese-American friend Faye Hall and their translator, had their phones confiscated and were later transferred to a Kabul jail by the Interior Ministry.

Their son Jonathan Reynolds, who lives in Chicago, told Sky News that the pair and their family had not been given an explanation by the authorities for their nine-week detention. 

“Originally they (authorities) said they didn’t have the right paperwork to have a chartered plane, which was incorrect and it was all produced,” he said.

“They took a short flight (to Bamiyan from Kabul) to pick up a Chinese-American friend who has visited multiple times,” he added.

“I believe there have been 29 investigative interviews with staff members — people they have served and supported — and everything has come up as no credible charges.”

In February, the Taliban said the pair were arrested because it was believed their Afghan passports were fake.

Peter Reynolds has said he was told books “against Islam” had been confiscated at their house in Afghanistan, but officials had not followed up on these claims.

“They’ve been in and out of court, which is infuriating for them because there’s no charges and they are told every single time: yes, they are innocent, it’s just a formality, we’ve made a mistake,” Jonathan Reynolds said.

In February, the BBC reported that a Taliban official had said the government was keen for the couple to be released. 

Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Mateen Qani was quoted by The Independent as having said: “A series of considerations is being taken into account, and after evaluation, we will endeavor to release them as soon as possible.”

Hall was released on March 29 after bounties placed on the heads of various Taliban figures, including the interior minister, were dropped by the US. The Taliban said her release was “a goodwill gesture.”

Peter Reynolds told the BBC: “Anybody who has the ability to unlock that key and let them out, whether it be the Taliban, whether it be the British government or whether it be the American government, I would ask — do it now, please.”

The family previously appealed to the Taliban to show clemency for Eid Al-Fitr, when the regime handed out amnesties to several thousand detainees in its prisons.

The couple, who married in Kabul in 1970, run the Rebuild organization, which provides training and educational programs for local people.

“I think anyone who goes in their 60s and 70s to live and become Afghan citizens is probably not naive to the dangers of it,” Jonathan Reynolds told Sky.

“If they wanted to live a quiet, retired life and be around their grandkids they could have done that.

“They are under a deep conviction from back in the late 60s when they married in Afghanistan in 1970 that they were going to give their life for a bright future for Afghanistan.”

He said he is extremely concerned for his parents’ welfare, especially as food and medicine are limited in the Taliban’s prison system.

EU and Qatari officials have been able to get essentials to the couple, who are being held separately, and Jonathan Reynolds expressed gratitude to Qatar for aiding his parents.

However, contact with them has been limited to the use of a pay phone in the jail — and the couple have had no direct contact with each other since being jailed.