Nearly 300 Afghan refugee families are living under the open sky in Islamabad’s Argentina Park, just miles from Islamabad’s ‘Red Zone’, the heavily secured government and diplomatic district in the federal capital. They sleep on the wet ground under plastic tarps, with no access to sanitation, medical care or legal protection — caught between Pakistan’s intensifying deportation campaign and the Taliban regime they fled.

The day after rain showers swept through parts of Islamabad on September 18, teenager Uswa Kohistani sits alone under a tree, writing poetry in Dari about the crisis unfolding around her. Families spread soaked clothing across the grass to dry. Passports and school certificates lie damp inside a mosquito net.

“We can neither go to work nor buy food from the markets,” says Kohistani, 19. “The police arrest us and forcibly take us to the border for deportation to Afghanistan.”

Caught between Pakistan’s intensifying campaign to expel Afghans and the Taliban regime many of them fled, nearly 300 families live under tarps in Islamabad’s Argentina Park. Facing a legal vacuum, even registered refugees find themselves with no right to stay

The Policy Behind the Crisis

This makeshift camp is a direct consequence of a stringent government policy that began two years ago. In September 2023, Pakistan announced that it was launching its “Illegal Foreigners’ Repatriation Plan”, giving undocumented Afghans till the end of October to leave the country or face forced expulsion.

At the time, Pakistan said it was hosting over four million Afghans — having arrived in the country in various waves over the last four decades, including after the return of the Taliban to power in 2021.

The policy distinguished between three categories: undocumented Afghans, those holding Afghan Citizen Cards (ACC) — documents issued by Pakistan since 2017 to those who couldn’t obtain refugee status — and those with Proof of Registration (PoR) cards, issued by Pakistan’s National Database Registration Authority (Nadra) with the support of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Approximately 1.4 million PoR cards had been issued to registered refugees, with another over 800,000 Afghans having ACCs.

The first phase, beginning in October 2023, focused on expelling undocumented Afghans. Within months, Pakistan had deported over half a million people.

At the same time, the government also found ways to reclassify legal refugees as deportable. When PoR cards expired, authorities refused to renew them — effectively stripping documented refugees of their legal status. Following appeals from UN agencies amid mass deportation, Pakistan agreed to extend the PoR cards by a year, in June 2024. They expired again on June 30, 2025, after which started the third phase of deportations.

But before that came the second phase, in April 2025, targeting the ACC holders. Returns surged dramatically — in April alone, fear of arrest drove the vast majority of departures.

Since September 2023, more than 1.5 million Afghans have returned to Afghanistan, according to data released earlier this month by UNHCR and the International Organisation for Migration. In the final week of September 2025, over 45,000 Afghans crossed back through border points at Torkham, Chaman and elsewhere.

Among recent returnees, 56 percent held PoR cards — proof that even “legal” refugees are being pressured to leave. Nearly 40 percent were undocumented and five percent held ACC cards, the data adds.

But with PoR cards no longer being renewed, over 1.4 million registered refugees became technically undocumented on June 30. The categories have collapsed and nearly everyone faces deportation risk.

The camp in Argentina Park represents those who refuse to go back.

Life in the Park

Noora Khandhari, from Kabul, says landlords evicted refugee families from rented homes as the crackdown intensified. She has lived in the park for close to two months, with only plastic sheeting for shelter.

“The whole area flooded last night,” she says, referring to the September 18 rainfall that hit G-6 and surrounding sectors. “We stayed awake while the kids were terrified and crying,” she tells Eos.

Around 180 children under age five live in the camp, according to residents’ own count. Lina Mehrabzada, a widow with five children, says families pool money for one shared meal daily.

“Every other child has diarrhoea,” says Mehrabzada. “The government hospital near the park refuses treatment without a national ID card,” she adds.

Women at the camp say they use washrooms in a nearby mosque or hospital once a day. There is no privacy for sleeping, bathing or changing clothes, they add.

“We can’t go back to Afghanistan with the Taliban still in charge,” says Mehrabzada. “We see no future for our children there,” she adds.

The Resettlement Bottleneck

It is the same for Hassina Rafy, who worked as a journalist and human rights activist in Kabul before fleeing to Pakistan in 2022 after receiving Taliban threats. “The Taliban were against women’s voices like mine — journalists, musicians, activists,” she says. “UNHCR registered us when we arrived and promised support,” Rafy continues. “Now they’re nowhere to be seen.”

Rafy says she and others entered Pakistan legally but the government stopped extending visas.

Sanam Kabiri, a human rights activist who recently resettled in Australia after more than two years in Pakistan, describes the bureaucratic maze refugees face while waiting for third-country resettlement.

“Every two months, our SIM cards were locked,” she tells Eos via WhatsApp. “We kept applying for visas, but most were rejected and we had to reapply,” she continues. She says she was taken ill during her last few months in Pakistan, but the stress stemmed more from her precarious situation than from direct harassment by authorities.

Kabiri left in February this year, before the crackdown on documented migrants.

At the same time, the refugee resettlement process can take one to three years, according to UNHCR. The annual global resettlement quotas for Afghan refugees, determined by individual countries, have dropped sharply — from over 116,000 refugees resettled last year to a few thousand this year. The United States and Germany both suspended or severely restricted their resettlement programmes in 2025, further narrowing options for those waiting.

“I know many people still stranded in Pakistan—journalists, activists,” says Kabiri. “Many had flights to the US cancelled and remain in limbo.”

A Legal Vacuum

Pakistan is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol — the international treaties that establish legal protections for refugees in 149 countries worldwide. Instead, it operates under the Foreigners Act, which empowers the authorities to arrest, hold and deport foreigners, including refugees and asylum seekers who do not possess valid documentation.

This means refugees in Pakistan exist in a legal vacuum. The absence of a legal framework explains why visa extensions stopped, why no registration mechanism exists, and why refugees like those in Argentina Park have no recourse when threatened with deportation.

Qaiser Khan Afridi, UNHCR’s spokesperson in Pakistan, says the agency met with protesters at Argentina Park and has assigned a legal team to assist refugees who are detained.

“Many Afghans in need of protection cannot regularise their stay, leaving them exposed to serious risks,” Afridi tells Eos. “We are urging the government to establish a registration and documentation mechanism.”

He acknowledges processing delays, but disputes claims of abandonment, noting that resettlement quotas are set by receiving countries, not UNHCR.

UNHCR stresses that refugees should not be returned to situations of danger — a principle known as non-refoulement. But without Pakistan’s signature on the Refugee Convention, this remains an appeal to humanitarian norms rather than enforceable law.

No Return, No Future

Back in Argentina Park, Uswa Kohistani closes her poetry notebook as evening approaches. She came to Pakistan seeking safety. Now, even stepping out of the park leaves her vulnerable to harassment; police in Islamabad can detain Afghan refugees at will and force them to cough up a bribe due to their status.  

“We are not criminals, we are educated families,” she says. “Most importantly, we are human beings,” Kohistani adds. “The Pakistani state should treat us as such.”

The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Shangla, KP. X: @umar_shangla

Published in Dawn, EOS, October 12th, 2025