• 1.3 m Afghan refugees obtained proof of registration card: UNHCR
• Pakistan has hosted millions of Afghans for five decades.
• Peshawar hosts the highest number of Afghans than any other city.

Peshawar: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) hosts the largest majority of the Afghan nationals residing in the country recently asked to leave Pakistan before March 31, The news reported.

Pakistan currently hosts 2.1 million documented Afghans. There are hundreds of thousands of undocumented Afghan citizens who also live in Pakistan for decades.

However, a majority of them returned to their country during a voluntary repatriation plan in 2023.

“Out of the total 2.1 million, 1.3 million Afghan refugees are those who have obtained proof of registration cards. Over 52% of them are in KP, ”the spokesman for the United Nations High Commission told Refugees (UNHCR) Qasier Afridi The news.

He added that there were about 800,000 Afghans who had obtained ACC cards and the majority of them lived in KP.

POR card holders were registered in support from UNHCR in 2006, while ACC card holders were documented in 2017 after the national action plan was launched.

Pakistan has hosted millions of Afghans for about five decades. Hundreds of thousands of them returned to their country in the last few years, but still live over 2.1 million in KP and other provinces.

The Pakistani authorities have set on March 31 as the deadline for all the illegal Afghans as well as those who had ACC cards to return to their country.

There are tens of thousands of Afghans born in Pakistan and hardly went to their homeland throughout their lives.

A large number of them are again concerned when the deadline is approaching quickly during the holy month.

Peshawar hosts the highest number of Afghan citizens than any other city. Thousands of them are doing their own businesses, while others have been doing jobs in the city for the past several decades. They live in many cities, suburbs and rural areas with the local population.

By 2023, the government had only established on October 31 for the unregistered foreigners, after which a large number of such undocumented Afghans returned to their homeland via Torkham and other border crossings.

Special camps were set up in Chamkani, Nowshera and other districts in the country for those who volunteered back to Afghanistan.

No action was taken during the previous drive against Afghans who had a pore or ACC card as well as valid visas.

The government had also prevented authorities from moving towards those whose cases were under the process of UNHCR, and they planned to travel to a third country due to serious threat to their lives in Afghanistan.