KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – Pakistani police detained hundreds of Afghan nationals in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province over the weekend as authorities stepped up the nationwide crackdown on Afghan refugees following renewed border clashes with the Taliban.
According to the Pakistani daily Dawn, a local court in Peshawar on Sunday ordered hundreds of Afghan citizens into judicial custody after they were arrested from multiple districts in the province, including the provincial capital.
The newspaper reported that police detained the individuals during operations carried out on Saturday and Sunday in different neighborhoods. Due to the large number of detainees, court officials struggled to accommodate them within the court premises.
According to the report, judicial authorities later ordered the release of dozens of them who were found to be carrying valid visas or other legal residency documents. The exact number of those detained was not disclosed, with the newspaper citing the unusually high volume of arrests as making it difficult to maintain an accurate tally.
The arrests come as Pakistani authorities have stepped up security measures and immigration enforcement following recent cross-border tensions and armed clashes with the Taliban, which officials say have resulted in casualties on both sides.
Police have launched house-to-house searches in several cities in recent days, detaining undocumented Afghans, according to media and local sources. Similar operations have been reported in Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Quetta, and Karachi. In Quetta, dozens of people were detained and deported over the past two days, sources said.
According to estimates by the UN, at least one million Afghans were deported from Pakistan in 2025, following more than one million returns in 2024 after Islamabad launched its Foreign Nationals Repatriation Plan in October 2023.
Parallel large-scale returns have also been taking place from Iran, where millions of Afghans have crossed back into Afghanistan in recent years as Tehran tightened immigration enforcement.
Human rights organizations say that among those deported in recent years were activists, journalists, women’s rights defenders, and former employees of Afghanistan’s previous government. Some of them have reportedly been detained, disappeared, or killed after returning to Afghanistan, and many others have gone into hiding.
The surge in deportations comes as Afghanistan faces a deepening humanitarian crisis under Taliban rule. The UN says nearly 22 million people, almost half the population, require humanitarian assistance this year, while nearly four million children are suffering from acute malnutrition.
Women and girls continue to face restrictions on education and employment imposed by the Taliban, limiting household income and access to essential services for many families.
International aid agencies and human rights groups have repeatedly urged Pakistan and Iran to halt forced returns, warning that many returnees, particularly women, journalists, activists, and former officials, face serious security risks and possible retaliation once they cross back into Afghanistan.
