Islamabad: Pakistan’s Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed has said that Pakistan is not setting up any new camps in Kabul to accommodate Afghan refugees trying to flee the war-torn neighboring country since the Taliban came to power.
The Business Recorder newspaper reported that Rashid said there were no Afghan refugees at the border and that the government had not set up any camps in the area.
Rashid’s statement came during his visit to the Torkham border on Sunday, after reports that people were gathering at the border and trying to enter Pakistan, which already hosts nearly three million Afghan refugees. Has been doing.
According to officials, nearly half of the refugees living in Pakistan are illegal because they are not registered in the country. About 1.5 million are officially registered and have documents to live, do business and move across the border.
Pakistan has been saying since the outbreak of the current Afghan crisis that it will not accept any more refugees. But its ministers have been making contradictory statements about allowing Afghans to come.
While the Home Minister has taken a tough stand on the issue, Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry said last week that the policy regarding women and children may be different. However, no clarification has been issued yet.
The official also said that Pakistan has issued visas and travel documents to about 4,000 people in Afghanistan to enter Pakistan at the height of the evacuation crisis. It is said that most of them were given three-week transit visas to fly to various destinations in the West.
On August 15, the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan, two weeks before the US prepared to complete its troop withdrawal after two decades of war.
Insurgents stormed the country, capturing all major cities in a matter of days, as Afghan security forces trained and equipped by the US and its allies melted away.
