Torkham, Afghanistan – Gul Khan Kaka was in his early 20s when he had to abandon his home and flee to neighbouring Pakistan after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979, a war that lasted a decade.

Four decades later, Kaka, now 62, is a refugee again – this time as an undocumented Afghan driven out of Pakistan as part of a government crackdown on “illegal” foreigners.

“We left our homes, embarking on a journey on horses and donkeys towards Pakistan, desperate to save our lives,” he told Al Jazeera at a camp established by the Taliban authorities near Torkham, the main border crossing between the South Asian nations.

“Forty years ago, we lived in tents and now we find ourselves in tents again. That’s the entire of my life story.”

Tens of thousands of nearly 1.7 million undocumented Afghans in Pakistan – some for decades, with homes and livelihoods – have been crossing into Pakistan since November 1, the deadline announced by the Pakistani government for the refugees to leave.

Once on the other side, they turn into refugees within their own homeland, impoverished by decades of wars and conflict and now facing a severe food and jobs crisis – a country where 15 of its 40 million people do not know where their next meal will come from.

The Taliban administration has set up two main camps, in Torkham and Spin Boldak, along the Pakistan border to facilitate the daily transfer of the refugees to their respective hometowns and villages across Afghanistan.

The United Nations estimates that more than 330,000 Afghans have left Pakistan since November 1. This week, Pakistan opened three more border crossings in southwestern Balochistan province to expedite its expulsion campaign.

Police harassment, extortion alleged

At the camp at Torkham, Kaka along with thousands of others wait for their turn to be transferred to their respective areas. Some families had been waiting for nearly two weeks. Officials say they are in the process of documenting all the refugees and arranging vehicles to transport them onwards.

As they wait, they share accounts of the alleged harassment and persecution by the Pakistani police during the expulsion.

Kaka, who lived in Lahore for many years, said he faced significant challenges after the ultimatum for all “illegal” migrants was announced.

“I had just undergone two surgeries and still felt unwell, so I had gone to see a doctor when the police arrested me,” he said.

“After the arrest, they confiscated everything I had on me and later decided to deport me. My family had no knowledge of my whereabouts. Upon arrival here in the camp, I called them and they informed me they were also on their way.”

Liaqat Ullah, another refugee, told Al Jazeera the police confiscated thousands of rupees and gold during a raid on his home in Faisalabad in Pakistan’s Punjab province.

“The police demanded some documents while searching for money and other valuables. They took away 9 grams of gold and 375,000 rupees [$1,300], claiming it was Pakistan’s wealth now and not Afghanistan’s,” he alleged.

“The female members of my family and children were in shock until we crossed Torkham.”

Several refugees shared similar stories of police “harassment, bullying and torture”. Habibullah said the police in Faisalabad subjected him to torture and mistreatment.

“The police treated us as if we were not human. They raided our houses, abused both the male and female family members, and expelled us in very adverse conditions,” he told Al Jazeera.

Shahzadgy, a widow in her late 60s who was living with her daughter and son-in-law in Peshawar, said the officials gave her little time to pack and leave.

“They told us to go, instructed the owner of our house to evict Afghans and not give home on rent to them,” she said. “We spent a great time there with the people but the way the government expelled us, we will never forget, never ever.”

Al Jazeera reached out to senior government and police officials in Peshawar city and Punjab province, but they refused to comment on the allegations.

‘Hungry but happy’

Habibullah said many refugees were compelled to sell their possessions at half-price since they were not allowed to take them back to their country.

“We had cows and other animals and belongings, but sold everything at a reduced value,” he said. “They [Pakistani authorities] only allowed us to carry 50,000 rupees [$170] when we were crossing the border and confiscated the excess amount from every family.”

But, Habibullah, now residing in the camp with a dozen family members, said despite being aware of the financial crisis in his homeland, he was happy to be back.

“We know the economic situation in our country is dire and we anticipate facing hunger, but we are and will be happy here,” he told Al Jazeera.

Izzat Khan remembers his days in Pakistan as a refugee, describing them as “marvellous and incredible”.

“We left behind our Pakistani brothers and sisters and we will never forget them in our prayers,” he said with a smile, which soon turned to rage. “But I will not say anything about their [Pakistan] government as they hosted us for years but kicked us out like a football.”

The Taliban authorities have established a religious school at Torkham to teach the children every day for a few hours. The government has also announced some job vacancies for the refugees in the Vice and Virtue Ministry, “but only for those with a degree in religious education,” as posted by Zabihullah Mujahid, Taliban’s chief spokesperson, on his X account.

Due to poverty, many Afghan children had worked as labourers for years in Pakistan and never had the opportunity to attend school.

Asadullah, 15, was more fortunate. He was born and raised in Peshawar, where he was studying in a school when the crackdown on refugees began.

“I was getting an education in Urdu and English languages there. Now I don’t know what I will study here,” he told Al Jazeera. “I really miss my school and my classmates. I was studying wholeheartedly but they expelled us.”

Syed Omer, another student from Peshawar, said he had to “abruptly abandon school and everything else” and flee to Afghanistan.

“I urge the Taliban government to build schools for us and I would like to continue my education,” he said.

As the children who had never set foot in Afghanistan speak, their parents stand nearby, pondering over the challenges ahead for them as they rebuild their lives in their homeland.

“I have three children and all of them were born and raised in Pakistan. When I told them we had to go to our country Afghanistan, they were all surprised and asked: ‘Our country is Pakistan, not Afghanistan,” said one of the fathers at Torkham.

The Taliban’s acting commerce minister met Pakistan’s foreign minister in Islamabad this week, says an Afghan embassy statement, discussing trade and how the thousands of Afghan citizens Pakistan is expelling could take cash and other assets back to their homeland.

The meeting between Haji Nooruddin Azizi and Pakistan’s Jalil Abbas Jilani took place days after Pakistan said its move to expel more than a million undocumented Afghans was a response to the unwillingness of the Taliban-led administration to act against armed fighters using Afghanistan to carry out attacks in Pakistan.

Taliban officials say the attacks are an internal matter for Pakistan and have called on Islamabad to halt its deportation of Afghan citizens.

“Bilateral trade, especially the stranded goods of [Afghan] traders in Karachi port, smooth transfer of [Afghan] refugees’ properties to [Afghanistan] and related issues were discussed,” Afghanistan’s embassy in Islamabad said in the statement.

Afghan citizens returning to Afghanistan have said there are restrictions on the transfer of cash and property to Afghanistan from Pakistan, where many had built businesses and homes for decades.

Pakistan’s foreign office said Jilani conveyed the message that: “full potential for regional trade and connectivity can be harnessed with collective action against terrorism”.

Last month, Pakistan set a November 1 start date for the expulsion of all undocumented immigrants, including hundreds of thousands of Afghans. It cited security reasons, brushing off calls to reconsider from the United Nations, rights groups and Western embassies.

According to government figures, around 4.4 million Afghan refugees live in Pakistan, 1.7 million of them without valid documents.

Three more border crossings opened

On Monday, Pakistan opened three new border crossings to accelerate the repatriation in southwestern Balochistan province in addition to the main crossing in Chaman district, said Jan Achakzai, information minister for the provincial caretaker government.

The number of border crossings used to deport thousands of Afghans rose to five after the new facilities were opened. Currently, about 15,000 Afghans have been crossing the border every day from Pakistan. Before the crackdown, the figure was about 300.

Some 305,462 Afghan refugees have since left the country, authorities said. The majority, 209,550, crossed the border from the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkwa, said Fazal Rabbi, a senior official overseeing the deportation process.International aid agencies have documented chaotic and desperate scenes among Afghans who have returned from Pakistan. They have raised alarm at the dire conditions many Afghans who have recently returned are facing with few resources as the cold winter season begins and say many are staying in crowded shelters near the border operated by NGOs and Taliban authorities.

“Many Afghans in Pakistan are now facing police raids and demolition of their homes without due process. Detainees have been denied the right to a lawyer and communication with family members, leaving loved ones in the dark as to their whereabouts,” Amnesty International wrote on X, formerly Twitter, asking Pakistan to immediately halt deportations to prevent further escalation of this crisis.

Achakzai, the information minister, said police in Balochistan in recent days had arrested more than 1,500 Afghans who had no valid documents.

A prominent Pakistani human rights lawyer, Moniza Kakar, said in the southern port city of Karachi that police had launched midnight raids on homes and detained Afghan families, including women and children.

The head of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Hina Jilani, said Pakistan lacks a comprehensive mechanism to handle refugees, asylum seekers and migrants without papers, despite hosting Afghans for 40 years.

Also on Monday, police said officers were investigating whether an Afghan man, Asif Khan, killed his 25-year-old Pakistani wife, Ameena Bibi, because she refused to go to Afghanistan with him.

The incident happened the previous day in the northwestern city of Nowshera, police official Yasir Khan said. He said the suspect left the country with his four children.

Pakistan’s foreign office said the Taliban acting commerce minister would also undertake a trilateral meeting with representatives from Pakistan and Uzbekistan on Tuesday.

The agenda for the trilateral meeting was not clear, but the three countries have been working on plans for trade transit and railway connections between South and Central Asia that would cross through Afghanistan.