Islamabad, Pakistan – Syed Muhammed is holding a prescription a doctor wrote for his ailing mother, whom he carried on his shoulders to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. But there are no shops to buy medicines.

“What use do I have for this paper? There is no market here. I don’t have any money. Where do I get the medicine for my mother now?” he asked Al Jazeera.

Muhammad is among nearly 1.7 million undocumented Afghan refugees and migrants ordered by the Pakistani government to leave the country by Wednesday. “Holding centres” have been set up in all of the country’s four provinces to detain “illegal” foreign nationals who do not leave by the deadline.

Most of the refugees and migrants have converged at the Torkham border crossing in northwestern Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, awaiting exit formalities being conducted by officials belonging to Pakistan’s National Database Registration Authority.

The paperwork has resulted in a huge queue. There are no shelters, so families have been forced to sleep on top of trucks and on the open ground. Chaotic scenes have been witnessed at the transit point amid fears of a government crackdown starting Thursday against those who remain in Pakistan.

Officials said more than four million foreigners live in Pakistan, a vast majority of them Afghan nationals who have sought refuge over the past four decades. The exodus began with the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and continued during the post-9/11 US invasion and the second takeover of the government in Kabul by the Taliban in 2021.

Refugees such as Azeemullah Mohmand said their lives had been completely uprooted and they have no idea how to restart them in Afghanistan, where decades of conflict have disrupted its economy and created a humanitarian crisis.

“I lived in Pakistan for more than a decade. I have three children and a large, extended family, who are being pushed back after the government did not fulfill its promise of providing us proper documentation. I have no money, no roof. Where do I go back to?” Mohmand told Al Jazeera.

The eviction drive and lack of facilities at the border crossing have angered the returning Afghans, who chanted slogans against the Pakistani government.

Agha, 25, who spent more than five years in Pakistan, reached the deportation centre on Tuesday night along with his family of eight.

Sardarullah, a 38-year-old Afghan labourer who worked for more than four years in Pakistan’s most populous Punjab province, also complained about the lack of privacy for women and children.

“We are sitting here out in the open with no shelter, no place to go for a washroom, no place to sit properly. First, they want to throw us out of the country, and then they don’t even fulfill promises of giving us a dignified exit,” he told Al Jazeera.

Fazal Rabbi, an official overseeing the deportation process in Landi Kotal, a city 6km (3.6 miles) from the Torkham border crossing, said he expected thousands of people to complete their identification process on Wednesday.

“It is the first day after the  expiry of the deadline, so naturally, there is a lot of rush, and things are moving a little slowly,” he told Al Jazeera.

Rabbi said the government is trying to provide better facilities at the crossing.

“We have set up portable toilets here while installing more in light of a heavier influx of people in the coming days. Provincial authorities have also provided us with tents to provide shelter for the people in case it rains or gets cold,” he said.

But rights group have slammed Pakistan’s decision to deport Afghan refugees and demanded Islamabad reverse its decision.

“More than 1.4 million refugees are at risk of being uprooted from the place they have taken refuge and called home. There is still time for Pakistan to act swiftly today to avoid creating a crisis where families are rendered homeless, denied access to livelihood and basic services, and separated in the lead-up to the harsh winter months.”

Human Rights Watch said the Pakistani government is “using threats, abuse and detention to coerce” Afghan asylum seekers without legal status to return to Afghanistan.

“The situation in Afghanistan remains dangerous for many who fled, and deportation will expose them to significant security risks, including threats to their lives and wellbeing,” it said.

Additional reporting by Islam Gul Afridi from Landi Kotal, Pakistan

Afghanistan’s Taliban government has urged Pakistan to give undocumented Afghans in the country more time to leave as pressure mounts at border posts where thousands of returnees have gathered, fleeing the threat of deportation.

The Pakistani government has given 1.7 million undocumented Afghans in the country until November 1 to leave voluntarily or be forcibly removed.

More than 130,000 people have left Pakistan since the order was given at the start of October, according to Pakistani border officials, creating bottlenecks on either side of crossing points.

Taliban authorities thanked Pakistan and other countries that have hosted millions of Afghans who fled during decades of conflict.

However, in a statement late on Tuesday, they also “asked them to not forcibly deport Afghans with little notice but to give them time to prepare”.

Tens of thousands leave

Pakistan has said it will begin an effort on Thursday to round up and expel anyone still in the country, after setting the deadline in October to begin expelling all undocumented immigrants, including hundreds of thousands of Afghans.

A senior official in the northwest province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa bordering Afghanistan said about 104,000 Afghan nationals had left through the main Torkham border crossing during the last two weeks.

“Some of them have been living in Pakistan for more than 30 years without any proof of registration,” said Nasir Khan, the deputy commissioner of the area.

An as yet undetermined number have also left via the Chaman border crossing in the southwestern province of Balochistan.

Pakistan’s interior ministry said 140,322 of those who had stayed without documents had left.

“A process to arrest the foreigners … for deportation has started by November 1,” it said in a statement, adding that voluntary return would still be encouraged.

Of the more than four million Afghans living in Pakistan, the government estimates 1.7 million are undocumented.

Regional tensions

Since taking power, the Taliban government has urged Afghans to return home but has also condemned Pakistan’s actions, saying nationals are being punished for tensions between Islamabad and Kabul.

Pakistan has said the deportations are to protect its “welfare and security” after a sharp rise in attacks, which the government blames on armed groups operating from Afghanistan.

The Taliban has rejected the claim, saying, “In countries where Afghans live, they have not threatened the security of those countries, nor have they been the cause of instability.”

The statement criticised Pakistan for restrictions on what Afghans could bring across the border, including property, such as livestock and cash.

Border officials on the Afghan side at the Torkham crossing in eastern Afghanistan said they were facing an “emergency situation” as they tried to keep up with thousands of arrivals.

An ad hoc settlement has sprung up near the border post, where people sleep outdoors with limited access to food, water and medicines as they wait for registration.

The government has established a high commission to address the issue and said two temporary camps would be set up in the area near Torkham.

Wednesday’s statement also urged wealthy Afghans to work with the high commission to support returnees with transport, accommodation and shelter.

Officials have said staff, technical reinforcements and trucks carrying mobile toilets, generators and water tankers were being deployed to Torkham.

A high-level government delegation visited Torkham on Tuesday, pledging support to returnees who had been “forcibly evicted by the Pakistani government against all the norms, good neighbourliness and humanitarian sentiments”.

Islamabad, Pakistan – Thousands of Afghan refugees and migrants in Pakistan are heading to the border to return home a day before a government-imposed deadline to leave the country expires.

Earlier this month, Pakistan’s interim interior minister, Sarfaraz Bugti, issued an October 31 deadline for all “illegal” refugees and migrants to leave, citing security concerns.

The government says more than four million foreigners live in Pakistan, a vast majority of them Afghan nationals who sought refuge over the last four decades after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s.

More recently, after the Taliban regained power in 2021, Pakistani officials say between 600,000 to 800,000 Afghans migrated to Pakistan.

The Pakistani government claims nearly 1.7 million of those Afghans are undocumented.

Local media reports on Tuesday said nearly 100,000 Afghan immigrants have voluntarily gone back to their country from Torkham border crossing in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Chaman crossing in Balochistan provinces this month.

Bugti on Monday denied the repatriation drive was targeted against the Afghans. “Most of the undocumented people are from Afghanistan, and the impression that only people from Afghanistan are being evicted is wrong,” he told a news conference.

The government is also setting up deportation centres in all four provinces to detain foreigners until they are sent back. Rights groups and the United Nations have slammed Pakistan’s decision to evict the refugees.

The deportation order came during a dramatic surge in armed attacks in Pakistan, which the government blames on Afghanistan-based groups and nationals, allegations denied by the Afghan Taliban.

“There have been 24 suicide bomb attacks since January this year and 14 of them were carried out by Afghan nationals,” Bugti said on October 3 when he announced the repatriation plan.

Adeela Akhtar, an Afghan refugee in Rawalpindi, told Al Jazeera she had “no idea what tomorrow [Wednesday] will bring” for her.

“If the police come to my door tomorrow, I will plead with them, implore them to let me stay. I cannot go back, but I don’t know how else to convince them to let me stay here,” said the 47-year-old widow and a mother of two children.

“If police come to my door tomorrow, I will plead them, implore them to let me stay. I cannot go back, but I don’t know how else to convince them to let me stay here,” she says.

Akhtar, a former school teacher in Kabul, moved to Pakistan 18 months ago after the Taliban took over as she feared for her safety. She said she applied for the Pakistani visa and made multiple visits to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office for securing documentation to facilitate her stay, but did not get any help.

Asad Khan, an Islamabad-based lawyer who provides legal aid to Afghan refugees, criticised the government’s move, saying it violated their fundamental rights.

“Pakistan’s constitution guarantees the dignity of man, and the same applies to refugees, too. We can say that under certain international laws, which have been ratified by Pakistan, sending these people back is illegal,” he told Al Jazeera.

Khan said removing Afghans who had been living in Pakistan for many years – and even decades – would be “deeply disruptive” to their lives.

“They have built homes, families and livelihoods here in Pakistan and now returning to Afghanistan surely poses significant challenges for them. The security situation in Afghanistan remains uncertain, economic opportunities are scarce, and access to essential services like healthcare and education is limited,” he said.

“Above all, the psychological toll of returning to a war-torn country cannot be understated. It is imperative that any such policy carefully considers the wellbeing and safety of these refugees and adheres to international obligations to protect vulnerable populations.”

In a statement on Tuesday, Human Rights Watch condemned Pakistan’s decision and said the government was using “threats, abuse, and detention to coerce Afghan asylum seekers without legal status to return to Afghanistan or face deportation”.

“Pakistan’s announced deadline for Afghans to return has led to detentions, beatings, and extortion, leaving thousands of Afghans in fear over their future,” said Fereshta Abbasi, the Afghanistan researcher at HRW.

“The situation in Afghanistan remains dangerous for many who fled, and deportation will expose them to significant security risks, including threats to their lives and well-being.”