The Afghanistan embassy in Pakistan has warned that the government wants to remove all Afghan refugees from the capital, Islamabad, and the adjoining city of Rawalpindi.

The embassy issued a strongly worded statement on Wednesday, saying Afghan nationals in both cities have been subjected to arrests, searches and orders from the police to leave and relocate to other parts of Pakistan.

The warning comes as the relationship between the two countries continues to deteriorate, with Islamabad accusing Kabul of failing to curb cross-border attacks.

“This process of detaining Afghans, which began without any formal announcement, has not been officially communicated to the Embassy of Afghanistan in Islamabad through any formal correspondence,” the embassy said.

“Ultimately, officials from Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that there is a definitive and final plan to deport/remove all Afghan refugees not only from Islamabad and Rawalpindi but also from the entire country in the near future,” it added.

Last year, Pakistan announced that illegal Afghan refugees would not be allowed to live in Islamabad and Rawalpindi. The Islamabad administration made this announcement after claiming that the Afghan refugees took part in the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party’s protest rally held in the capital in November last year.

In November 2023, Pakistan launched a widely criticised repatriation programme aimed at returning millions of Afghans, regardless of their legal status.

Pakistan currently hosts nearly more than 2.5 million Afghans, according to government estimates. About half of them are registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Authorities say those registered earlier had their stay extended until June 2025, and they would not be arrested or deported at least until the extension expires.

Last month, in a two-page document issued by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s office, the government outlined a three-phase plan to send back Afghan citizens to their country.

The Afghan embassy said it had already “expressed serious concerns” regarding the “mass expulsion of Afghan refugees within such a short timeframe and the unilateral nature of Pakistan’s decision”.

Pakistan has set March 31 as the deadline to expel Afghan refugees from Islamabad and Rawalpindi in preparation for their deportation if they are not relocated to the host countries that agreed to take them after the Taliban seized power in 2021.

In the past three years, tens of thousands of Afghans have fled to Pakistan. Many of them were approved for resettlement in the United States through a programme that helps people at risk because of their work with the US government, media, aid agencies and rights groups.

However, US President Donald Trump paused refugee programmes last month. Since then, about 20,000 Afghans are now in limbo in Pakistan.