Afghan refugees in Pakistan forced to leave the country in response to get-tough measures

Muhammad Aslam inhabits what he describes as an absence of place.

Aslam migrated from Afghanistan to Pakistan as a teenager in 1981 after the Soviet invasion of his country. He got an education, becoming a doctor in the northern city of Peshawar, married and had a family.

One of millions of Afghans scattered by waves of civil war spanning more than three decades, Aslam made a life in his adopted country with every intention of staying.

Now he and others may be forced to go back to Afghanistan, a country in turmoil and one they know little about, because Pakistani officials are describing Afghans as a security and economic threat at a time of worsening militant violence. 

"It's like becoming a refugee again,” Aslam, 49, said recently in an interview. 

Pakistan has announced that the 1.5 million registered Afghan refugees in the country must leave by Dec. 31 as part of get-tough measures to combat terrorism, fueling fresh fear and uncertainty among families who have spent almost their entire lives in their adopted country.

An estimated 1 million other Afghan refugees are in Pakistan without papers and facing expulsion. Provincial police say that 8,000 Afghans in the country illegally have been arrested in the last three months. - Read More, latimes

Afghan refugees in Pakistan forced to leave the country in response to get-tough measures