ISLAMABAD: /DNA/ – The government said Taliban takeover of neighboring Afghanistan in August forced about 300,000 Afghans to take shelter in Pakistan and warned that the refugee crisis could aggravate if the international community would not urgently address the rapidly worsening humanitarian situation.
“If this number increases, our economy will not be able to bear this burden.” Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry said.
The minister talking to journalists ahead of the meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) foreign ministers in Islamabad, said, 290,000 Afghans have come to Pakistan since August 15, and this figure accounts to the legal entrants only.
Pakistan is hosting the OIC foreign minister’s meeting on Sunday to discuss the emerging situation in Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover and the departure of all US and allied forces.
The foreign minister’s meeting is expected to woo the Muslim countries to extend a helping hand for the struggling Afghans.
This is the first time that the Pakistan official revealed the number of new Afghan displaced people refuging in the neighboring country after the Kabul takeover.
Pakistani authorities suspected that thousands of people may have illegally crossed the porous borders into Pakistan, while it is estimated that thousands of Afghans have also fled to other neighboring countries.
Of the 2,640-kilometer boundary with Afghanistan, Pakistan has fenced nearly 90% and deployed the army and the Frontier Corps, a militia under the federal interior ministry, to man it.
The United Nations had weeks after the Taliban takeover warned that up to half a million Afghans could leave their country before the end of the year.
Pakistan initially refused to allow new arrivals from the war-ravaged country following the collapse of Ashraf Ghani government in August this year and sealed its border crossings.
Islamabad’s initial response to the influx of refugees was shaped by its worsening economic conditions and security concerns.
However, the restrictions were gradually relaxed as the humanitarian crisis worsened in the wake of winter and Pakistan stepped up its efforts for assisting Afghanistan deal with the growing crisis.
Pakistani is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention or the 1967 Optional Protocol for refugees.
Almost 3 million Afghan refugees, half of them unregistered, have been living in Pakistan since the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and subsequent waves of violence and later a civil war, according to the U.N.
Weeks before the Kabul takeover by Taliban, Pakistan authorities told the parliamentary national security committee that they estimated to receive as many as 700,000 new refugees in the first year alone.
