The majority of refugees are ethnic Pashtuns who have blended into Pakistan’s Pashtun-dominant belt along the border, which has long been poorly patrolled and traversed by migrant populations, including militants. Afghanistan, in fact, does not recognize the border, nor do many Pashtuns.
Originally housed in camps, most refugees now live in regular neighborhoods, where some have become fixtures in the transportation, clothing and carpet industries. Most are poorly-paid laborers.
There is little doubt the Afghans’ presence has affected Pakistan’s weak economy, but just how is debatable. Pakistan hosts more refugees for every dollar of per capita income than any other nation, which makes it difficult to absorb and support them, according to the UNHCR. But Afghans also contribute, said Rustam Shah Mohmand, Pakistan’s former refugee commissioner.
“Pakistan gets foreign exchange” from Afghan carpet exporters, Mohmand said. “Many have relatives in the West who send remittances. . . . They provide cheap farm labor to the landowners in the frontier.”
Yet many Pakistanis depict Afghans as drug- and gun-runners, in part because they are often arrested after militant attacks and violent crimes. The accusations are unfair, human rights advocates say.
Last year, the Pakistani government decided that all Afghan refugees would be “voluntarily” repatriated after the end of 2012. What that means remains unclear. A plan to offer visas will probably apply to only about 150,000 refugees, Khan said. But Tim Irwin, a UNHCR spokesman, said “there’s certainly no talk of anyone being forced back.”
There is such talk in Nowshera, however, where thousands of Afghans live. The recent fight broke out with a quarrel between Afghan and Pakistani youths, after which adults jumped into the fray, residents said. Pakistanis — who refer to themselves as “locals” — said Afghans attacked with rods, wounding several, then followed them to the hospital with Kalashnikovs.
Last week, dozens of Pakistani men packed into one elder’s home and recited grievances: Afghans keep to themselves, and they insulted Pakistan during the brawl. They are rich and buy off police. They are bad drivers.
“We are Pashtun, but we are not Afghan. We are Pakistani,” said Mohammed Akbar, 31. A man sitting on a sofa interjected: “The Afghans should go back!”
Yet a visit to Afghan elders — at the grand home of a clothing importer — revealed how indelibly the immigrants have become part of the landscape. Several had lived in Pakistan for 40 years and held dual citizenship. The fight, they shrugged, was a mere scuffle being exploited by Pakistani community leaders for political gain.
“We are mixing. But whenever such an incident happens, they label us Kabulis,” or Kabul natives, said refugee Jamil Khan, 23, who participated in the fight.
Both sides said the issue would be settled by elders, according to local tradition. But the Pakistanis said tensions would remain rife.
“Nobody believes that they will go,” said Liaqat Gilani, a former district mayor.
A short drive away at a former Afghan refugee camp that is now a squalid slum, truck owner Watan Khan, 39, said he has no plan to return to the home town he left in 1978, in Afghanistan’s Taliban-riddled Logar province. Therefore, he said, he has no right to complain about Pakistani treatment.
“Even if our lives are not as good as locals, we have no choice,” Khan said. “We are living in someone else’s land.”
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