Afghan refugees - both in Pakistan and those who have returned to their homeland - tell HRW of their experiences following the Army Public School attack, saying they faced unprecedented harrassment at the hands of the authorities.

Khailullah, 22, Peshawar University student

“From 5pm to 11pm, I operate a pushcart selling hot soup. [Since] I come from a very poor family, it is hard for me to afford education. In September, they raided [Board] market and took away everything, demolished shops, and arrested people. The government says that a road has to be built here. If this is true then they should resettle us somewhere. They cannot throw us out in the open.”

Also read: Afghan refugee returns reluctantly from Pakistan

Rehman Khan, 35, butcher shop owner

“The Khyber Teaching Hospital discriminates against us. [Since December 2014], we can’t get an appointment with the doctor and are not given medicine. I was detained in June 2015 at a police checkpoint. They released me after 30 minutes only when I paid bribe money.”

Khadija, 30, nurse

“I was born in Peshawar and have lived there all my life. But now, it is almost impossible to get a job being an Afghan. No one is even willing to consider me for a job. It is becoming very difficult for us to make ends meet.”

Jaffar, 40, labourer

“I have lived in Rawalpindi for 20 years after coming to Pakistan as a young man in the mid-1990s. I worked as a laborer and sometimes as a driver and I have a PoR card. In April or May, the police came and ordered us to leave our houses and move to the Haripur camp. They sent a message through the area representatives, “if you don’t go to the camp, at the camps there was no electricity, no hot water, nowhere to work. So we had to come [back to Afghanistan].”

Excerpts from interviews conducted by Human Rights Watch

Published in Dawn, November 18th, 2015