Pakistan is to expel nearly two million unauthorised Afghani asylum seekers.
The country’s government said it was giving the estimated 1.7 million people until November to leave the country.
This follows attacks on the border between the two countries which Islamabad has blamed on insurgents based in Afghanistan. The governing Taliban in Afghanistan denies this charge.
Tensions have also recently risen following a bomb blast at a mosque in the border city of Mastung, which saw 50 people killed.
Pakistan is home to a large number of refugees from Afghanistan, a number which has increased since the Taliban seized power again in 2021. It is estimated that there are 2.1 million legal refugees in Pakistan (about 800 000 have received the right to remain in Pakistan) while another 1.7 million are in the country illegally.
Sarfraz Bugti, the interior minister of Pakistan, was quoted as saying: ‘If they (Afghan refugees) do not go… then all the law enforcement agencies in the provinces or federal government will be utilised to deport them.’