Islamabad, Pakistan – Allah Meer’s parents were among the millions of Afghans who fled their country after the then-Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979.
His family settled in a refugee village in Kohat in northwestern Pakistan, where he was born in 1980, and never left. That’s where Meer, now 45, was born. Meer says that more than 200 members of his extended family made the journey from Afghanistan to Pakistan, which has been their home ever since.
Over the past two years, as Pakistan has moved to send back hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees, the family has feared for its future, but managed to evade Islamabad’s dragnet.
Last week, the threat of expulsion hit home: Pakistan announced it would close all 54 Afghan refugee villages across the country as part of the campaign it began in 2023 to push out what it calls “illegal foreigners”. These include the villages in Kohat, where Meer and his family live.
“In my life, I visited Afghanistan only once, for two weeks in 2013. Apart from that, none of my family have ever gone back,” Meer told Al Jazeera. “How can I uproot everything when we were born here, lived here, married here, and buried our loved ones here?”
Amid heightened tensions between Pakistan and the Taliban, which returned to governing Afghanistan in 2021, families like Meer’s are caught in a vortex of uncertainty.
Fighting erupted between Afghan and Pakistani forces along the border earlier in October, pushing already strained relations into open hostility. On Sunday, officials from both sides met in Qatar’s capital, Doha, and signed a ceasefire agreement, with the next round of talks scheduled in Istanbul on October 25.
Yet, tensions remain high. And families like Meer’s fear that they could become diplomatic pawns in a border war between the neighbours.
From welcome to expulsion
Pakistan has hosted millions of Afghan refugees since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. As civil war gripped Afghanistan and the Taliban first rose to power in 1996, successive waves of Afghans fled across the border.
After the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001 following the September 11 attacks on the US, the Taliban’s fall prompted thousands of Afghans to return home. But their return was short-lived.
The Taliban’s stunning comeback in August 2021 triggered yet another exodus, when another 600,000 to 800,000 Afghans sought refuge in Pakistan.
However, as relations between Kabul and Islamabad soured during the past four years, Pakistan – which was once the Taliban’s principal patron – accused Afghanistan of harbouring armed groups responsible for the cross-border attacks. The government’s stance hardened towards Afghan refugees, even those who have lived in the country for decades – like Meer.
A father of 10, Meer earned a degree in education from a university in Peshawar, and now runs a vocational training project for Afghan refugee children backed by the United Nations refugee agency, the UNHCR.
Since 2006, the UNHCR has issued what are known as Proof of Registration (PoR) cards to document Afghan citizens living in Pakistan. These cards have allowed them to stay in Pakistan legally, giving them some freedom of movement, although this is restricted, as well as access to some public services, including bank accounts.
But from June 30 this year, the Pakistani government has stopped renewing PoR cards and has invalidated existing ones.
“We all possess the UNHCR-issued Proof of Residence cards, but now, with this current drive, I don’t know what will happen,” Meer said.
In 2017, Pakistan also started issuing Afghan Citizenship Cards (ACC) to undocumented Afghan nationals living in the country, giving them identification credentials to provide them with a temporary legal status.
But the ACC is not a protection against deportation any more.
According to the UNHCR, more than 1.5 million Afghans left Pakistan – voluntarily or forcibly – between the start of the campaign in 2023 and mid-October, 2025.
‘Illegal in our home’
About 1.2 million PoR cardholders, 737,000 ACC holders and 115,000 asylum seekers remain in Pakistan, Qaiser Khan Afridi, the UNHCR’s spokesperson in Pakistan, told Al Jazeera.
Pakistan’s tensions with the Taliban have added new precarity to their status.
“For over 45 years, Pakistan has shown extraordinary generosity by hosting millions of Afghan refugees,” Afridi said. “But we are deeply concerned by the government’s decision to de-notify refugee villages all over Pakistan and to push for returns [to Afghanistan].”
“Many of those affected have lived here for years, and now fear for their future. We urge that any return should be voluntary, gradual, and carried out with dignity and safety.”
Meer, who has volunteered for the UNHCR over the years, said that seven refugee villages in Kohat alone house more than 100,000 people. He accused both Pakistan and Afghanistan of using the refugee issue as political leverage.
“With the latest situation, our family elders have sat together to discuss options. We thought about sending some of our young men to Afghanistan to look for houses and means to do business, but the problem is, we have no connections there at all,” he said.
With his PoR card now invalidated by the Pakistani government, he has no recognised identity card, making it hard for him to access even medical facilities when his children need treatment for any illness.
“We are, for all practical purposes, considered illegal in a country that I and my children call home,” he said.
Caught between borders
Pakistan’s plan to expel Afghan residents began in late 2023, amid a rise in rebe attacks. Since then, violence has surged, with 2025 shaping up to be the most violent year in a decade.
Pakistani authorities argue Afghan refugees pose a security risk, accusing the Taliban government of sheltering armed groups, a charge Kabul denies.
Two years ago, Pakistan’s then interior minister, Sarfraz Bugti, alleged that 14 out of 24 suicide bombings in the country in 2023 were carried out by Afghan nationals. He did not provide any evidence to back his claim, and he did not clarify if the individuals were refugees living in Pakistan, or Afghan nationals who had crossed the porous border between the two countries.
But Meer fears that Afghan refugees in Pakistan will be distrusted back in Afghanistan, too, given the climate of animosity between the neighbours.
“We will be seen as Pakistanis, as enemies there, too,” he said.
Afridi, the UNHCR spokesperson, urged Pakistan to reconsider its repatriation drive.
“UNHCR calls on the government to apply measures to exempt Afghans with international protection needs from involuntary return,” he said.
“Pakistan has a proud history of hospitality, and it’s important to continue that tradition at this critical time,” he said.
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