The deportation of Afghan refugees from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is likely to pick up pace as authorities are moving to push out those staying in refugee camps across the province after the Centre criticised the KP government’s response to the issue.

In October, the federal government denotified 28 refugee camps across the province during a drive to expel more than 1.3 million Afghan nationals with Proof of Registration (PoR) cards — the last category of refugees legally living in Pakistan without visas. The process was underway since September 1.

A senior government official told Dawn that Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi had accused the KP government of “going soft on Afghan refugees.”

“While all refugee camps across the province had been denotified, a soft drive was ongoing in KP to send them to Afghanistan,” he said.

The official said the Pak-Afghan border was closed for new arrivals and trade, while it was only open for deportation and repatriation of Afghan refugees.

In a presser last week, the interior minister had pointed out that refugee camps had been shut down across the country except KP, where they were still operational, he said, adding the refugees had been receiving health and educational facilities.

“Following the interior minister’s presser, the provincial authorities conveyed a message to the district administration to go hard on refugees,” he said.

According to the official, the KP authorities had been directed to return refugees to their country and discontinue facilities of health, education, electricity, drinking water and psycho-social support to the camps.

Some of the facilities had been discontinued, while the process for others was underway, the official said, adding the district authorities had actively been working to take over camps’ infrastructure and other facilities.

“They are being pushed out of refugee camps.”

A large number of Afghan refugees were living in urban areas as well, but they had yet to see a concerted effort to be sent back, he said.

About the repatriation of illegal Afghan nationals, Naqvi, in the press conference last week, had said the authorities were facing difficulties in KP about sending Afghan refugees back to Afghanistan.

“This is not the case in the three other provinces. Afghan migrants are being protected in the KP. The federal government had denotified camps of Afghan refugees, but several of them are still operational in KP,” Naqvi alleged. He warned the Afghans who had been repatriated that they would be arrested if they tried to return.

A total of 43 Afghan refugee camps were operational in the province before the denotification orders. On October 15, the authorities ordered the immediate shutdown of the 28 last remaining camps in the province.

A senior KP government official told Dawn that they had asked districts to hold jirgas with the refugees and facilitate those who wanted to go back to their homeland.

According to the UN refugee agency data released on Tuesday, a population count of Afghans living in Pakistan revealed that they number over 2.18 million, out of whom 1.22m are registered, with only 35pc of registered Afghans living in refugee villages.

In 2023, the government set a deadline of Nov 1 for all illegal immigrants to leave Pakistan, otherwise, all law enforcement agencies would deport them. The government, then, initiated a nationwide operation to deport illegal foreign nationals, the majority of whom were Afghans.

Key findings of a UN refugee agency report stated cumulatively, from September 15, 2023, to November 8, 2025, 1,723,481 individuals have returned to Afghanistan.