Pakistan opens new border crossings, expels 300,000 Afghans as deportation drive sparks criticism and strain on relations

 Pakistan has opened three new border crossings in order to expedite the deportation of Afghans living in the country illegally, officials have announced. Following the government's decision to crack down on undocumented migrants and offer them the choice to leave the country voluntarily or face expulsion, nearly 300,000 Afghans have left Pakistan in recent weeks. The majority of foreigners in Pakistan are Afghans, and the expulsions have drawn criticism from the Taliban-led government in Afghanistan as well as human rights organizations.

In response to the increasing number of deportations, the number of border crossings used for this purpose has risen to five with the opening of the new facilities in Baluchistan province. Prior to the crackdown, around 300 Afghan nationals were crossing the border daily. International aid agencies have documented chaotic and desperate scenes among those who have returned from Pakistan, and Amnesty International has called for an immediate halt to the deportations. Police in Baluchistan have arrested over 1,500 Afghans without valid documents, and reports of midnight raids and the detention of Afghan families, including women and children, have emerged.

The head of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan has commented on the country's lack of a comprehensive mechanism to handle refugees, asylum-seekers, and migrants without papers, despite hosting Afghans for four decades. The recent deportation drive has strained relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan, with Pakistan claiming that militants use Afghan soil to plan and carry out attacks and Afghanistan stating that Pakistan's security issues are domestic. The mass migration has also raised concerns of a humanitarian crisis, as Afghanistan struggles to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of people arriving and staying in makeshift tent villages on its side of the border.