Islamabad: Pakistani authorities have begun a campaign to forcibly repatriate approximately one million Afghan refugees.

According to National Iraqi News Agency,”the authorities have ignored calls from international human rights groups to exempt those who may be at risk of persecution by the Taliban regime.”

Zulkifli Hussain, an official at the Pakistani Ministry of Interior, said that “police are detaining Afghans in detention camps before transporting them to the border,” where the deadline for voluntary repatriation expires this week.

Mohammad Naeem, a police spokesman, confirmed that most of the arrests were made in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, but some families were transferred from the capital, Islamabad, and the neighboring city of Rawalpindi to the camps.

According to official data, Pakistan began the forced repatriation of illegal Afghans in November 2023, and approximately 900,000 people have been deported since then.

Last month, the government announced that it would deport more than 800,000 Afghans registered as refugees in Pakistan under a bilateral agreement between the two countries.

The authorities plan to deport approximately one million Afghans registered with UNHCR in the second and third phases of their repatriation operations.