For over four decades, Pakistan opened its doors when the world looked away. In the past, when Afghanistan suffered from the Soviet regime, the Afghan refugees were left to Pakistan with no other choices, and then when the Taliban returned, the Afghan refugees were once again left to the mercy of Pakistan, as Pakistan had to bear the consequences of Afghanistan’s economic, social and security crisis. It was a true act of giving. His sacrifice was on the real. However, the toll Pakistan is now paying for it is the same.
Afghan refugees’ departure from Pakistan is no story of brutalities. It’s a tale of a country making a first choice.
Today Pakistan is in a critical situation. Terrorism has not only come to our doorstep, it has come in and camped in our cities and attacked the very core of our security. Words of diplomacy have nothing to say to these numbers. In January, 2026, at a historic press conference, ISPR Director General, Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, made it a point to make it clear that 2025 is a pivotal year in Pakistan’s fight against terrorism. They were his words and they were not rhetorical ones, but factual. Almost a third of those who carried out the suicide attacks in Pakistan were Afghan nationals. More than 160 Afghan citizens lost their lives when they were involved in actual incidents of terrorism in Pakistan. The province with Afghanistan border shares 70% of all the terror attack in 2025.
These statements are not claims. No arguments are made by the military’s spokesman in front of the country and the world; these are just documented facts.
DG ISPR Chaudhry was clear and to the point in his message Pakistan’s national security cannot not be sacrificed to the disorder in another country. He shared solid evidence of the connection between Afghan nationals and high impact attacks, and highlighted that Pakistan has not acted hastily. Numerous humanitarian extensions of deadlines for repatriation were made. Pakistan has shown its time, space and mercy. The kind of response it got was the exploitation of that mercy.
There is no doubt that the departure of refugees is not helping Pakistan in any way. A weak western border where Pakistan’s armed actors are free to move, exploiting the refugee population is what is harming Pakistan. The only thing that harms Pakistan is the presence of networks in the undocumented community which have been linked to some of the most heinous attacks on our soldiers and civilians too. The Chief of Defence Forces, Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir, has always believed in a doctrine of security first and foremost based on sovereignty and strategic clarity and has championed it for Pakistan. The promotion to Field Marshal, the highest rank in the military that he had achieved, is not just for his personal glory; it was the second highest rank in the Pakistan army’s history. It’s a statement of the nation that Pakistan will defend itself and will do so in a precise, resolute and dignified manner.
There is no hatred of the Afghan people in Pakistan’s repatriation policy. The situation they fled from and the civil war that followed, have long since ceased to shape Afghanistan’s scene. Those basic rationales are no longer present, as DG ISPR himself recently commented in an international interview. Today, there is an Afghan Taliban government in Kabul, a state that functions, though is troubled, and a Pakistan that can no longer sustain an obligation that is now out to play against its own people.
International human rights groups have described this repatriation as a breach of refugees’ rights. Their care for the weak is noted. But it neatly avoids the pitfalls that Pakistani families have already encountered putting sons in uniform, schoolchildren who have suffered from bombs, and civilians who live in fear in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. If compassion is true, then it must be extended to both sides of this equation.
Pakistan has paid the international community many a time for its dues. For years it had served as host to the world’s largest refugee population, a region that had taken on the brunt of economic and social pressures, and yet it had successfully helped to maintain regional stability. However, as Field Marshal Munir leads a new era for Pakistan which is based on integrated defence command, tighter borders and combating the terror in the country that has already been able to neutralise thousands of militants, the state has every right to put its own people above all else.
The departure of Afghan refugees is not the end of a relationship between two neighbouring states. It is the beginning of a boundary one that should have been clearly drawn long ago. A Pakistan that is safe, stable, and sovereign, in the long run, is better for the entire region.
Peace cannot be built on unreciprocated sacrifice. Pakistan has learned that lesson, and it is acting on it.