Minister demands repatriation of Afghan refugees from Sindh.

Byline: Imran Ayub

KARACHI -- The Sindh government on Thursday asked Islamabad to make final arrangements for the repatriation of Afghan refugees living in the province as it could no longer host immigrants who were a 'key source of violence and crime' mainly in Karachi.

The strong reaction came from an important member of the Sindh cabinet, who demanded that the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf government in the centre take immediate measures so arrangements could be made for the return of Afghan refugees. However, the Pakistan Peoples Party minister did not mention any particular reason for his demand.

'Sindh is not an orphanage,' said Mohammad Ismail Rahu, the provincial agriculture minister. 'Some 2.5 million illegal immigrants and aliens are living in Karachi. We have here Burmese, Afghanis, Biharis, Bengalis and Africans. We are already facing our own issues. If the federal government wants illegal immigrants to stay in Pakistan, they should be settled in Islamabad and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.'

The federal government had decided to extend the stay of registered Afghan refugees in Pakistan till June 2020, marking 40 years of Afghan displacement and Pakistan's exceptional humanitarian assistance.

The decision of extension in their stay was announced during Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's visit to Pakistan in June last year. Prime Minister Imran Khan was said to have informed the Afghan president about the extension in the current deadline that ended on June 30, 2019. Before that the federal government had issued various deadlines for the Afghan refugees to leave the country, but the deadlines were often long-term and not enforced because the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees always insisted that any repatriation should be voluntary.

From December 2015 onwards, the federal...