“My son, a Thalassemia patient, would not be able to live for a week in Afghanistan because there are no doctors there,” said Ali Khan, an undocumented Afghan refugee who was asked to leave Pakistan.
According to him, his parents did not apply for identity cards thinking that they would return to their country one day and did not want to become Pakistanis.
Pakistan imposed a November 1 deadline for illegal refugees to sell their properties and move back across the border. Failure to do so will result in deportations. Reports said that up to 1.7 million Afghan refugees are living in Pakistan without any documentation.
“Only due to this, we could not get identity cards or refugee cards,” Khan said.
“I have spent around 50 years in Kacha Gharay of Peshawar in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Around 50 years ago, they [authorities] were going door to door offering people to make their identity cards,” he added.
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During his interview, he was holding his son, who according to Khan was a Thalassemia patient and was also suffering from a heart condition.
Khan said that his son, the only brother of four sisters, has to go through blood transfusions every month due to his disease.
Read: After deadline, will keep illegal refugees in ‘temporary camps’, says Bugti
“His surgery is scheduled after three months. There was no place for my son at the hospital. I went to the High Court and the Afghan Consulate, but they said that they could not do anything to help me,” Khan stated.
“Where are the human rights; are there any human rights in this state?” he asked.
He lamented the lack of job opportunities and the likely unemployment in his home country, saying “There is not work in Afghanistan. What will I do there?”
