The Taliban Consulate General in Karachi, Pakistan, has announced that there are over 2.5 million refugees from Afghanistan residing in Pakistan, with around 300 thousand of them lacking legal documents.
In an interview with TOLOnews on Saturday, Abdul Jabar Takhari, the Taliban General Consulate for Karachi, revealed that approximately 2.1 million refugees in Pakistan hold valid legal documentation.
In the meantime, Aamir Khan, the Deputy Permanent Representative of Pakistan at the United Nations, has asserted that his country is currently hosting over 3.5 million registered and unregistered refugees from Afghanistan.
Addressing the United Nations on Friday, the Pakistani diplomat emphasized the urgent need for international assistance to tackle the humanitarian and economic crisis in Afghanistan, in order to prevent a potential influx of millions seeking refuge from hunger and starvation.
“We must not overlook the situation in Afghanistan and shift our attention to other emergencies,” he added.
According to the UN, more than 600,000 citizens of Afghanistan have sought refuge in Pakistan since the Taliban takeover of the country, bringing the total number of Afghanistan refugees in the country to 3.7 million. However, only 1.32 million of them are officially registered with the UNHCR.
In recent months, Pakistani police have arrested hundreds of citizens of Afghanistan in various cities across the country, with some of them being subsequently deported back to Afghanistan.
