Pakistan's Standing Committee on States and Frontier Regions (SAFRON) heard this week that currently about 2.9 million Afghan nationals are living in Pakistan. Addressing the committee, the Chief Commissioner for Afghan refugees said 1.4 million Afghans are registered and 700,000 are unregistered.He also briefed the committee on humanitarian assistance currently being given to Afghan refugees in Pakistan, which includes, shelter, food, water, sanitation, education, and healthcare.The commissioner said however that Refugee Affected and Hosting Areas Programme (RAHA) development projects were stopped last year due to a lack of funding.Senators Saadia Abbasi and Syed Masroor Ahsan in turn called for international support to help Pakistan cope with the Afghan refugee situation, local media reported.Pakistan deports over 140 Afghan refugeesAfter stepping up efforts to deport Afghan refugees from Pakistan, the country's ministry of refugees affairs that it had recently handed over 141 Afghan refugees, including women and children, to Afghanistan immigration authorities at Torkham border.Bakht Jamal Gawohar, responsible for the transfer of Afghan refugees at Torkham crossing in Nangarhar Province, confirmed that this number of refugees has been handed over to this office.
The prisoners include men, women and children.Local media reports say this is the first time Pakistani authorities have sent Afghan prisoners en masse to Afghanistan on such a large scale.According to him, most of these people were released from Islamabad prisons, where their imprisonment period was between 5 and 10 days.The post 2.9 million Afghan nationals residing in Pakistan first appeared on Ariana News.