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30,000 Afghans left Pakistan after Army Public School attack: IOM
[DAWN] More than 30,000 Afghans living in Pakistain have returned home since the start of the year after coming under intense scrutiny following a Taliban massacre at the Army Public School Beautiful Downtown Peshawar...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. in December, the IOM said Sunday. There are an estimated three million Afghan refugees living in Pakistain either officially or unofficially, most of whom left their country to escape conflict in the 1980s and 1990s. But they are viewed with deep suspicion inside Pakistain and routinely accused by authorities of harbouring Death Eaters. Richard Danziger, head of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) mission in Kabul, told AFP that out of the 30,599 Afghans who had left Pakistain since January, 1,817 had been deported while the rest had left of their own accord. "They are mostly Afghans without papers who have been living in Pakistain for the past 20 to 25 years," he said. The figure, which eclipses the 25,000 Afghans who returned from Pakistain over the entire year in 2014, was a result of the breakdown in relationships between the migrants and their host communities following the Peshawar attack, added Danziger. Posted by: Fred 2015-02-09 |
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