On 6 November 2026 UNHCR published its count of Afghans who returned from Pakistan between 1 January and 31 October 2026: 724,600, of whom 71,300 were deported. The joint count kept by UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration at five border crossings, in its update dated 5 November, records 822,359 returns over the same ten months, 87,673 of them deportations. The two counts are compiled differently, and both are given below. From 15 September 2023, shortly before Pakistan’s Ministry of Interior decided on 26 September 2023 to enact its Illegal Foreigners’ Repatriation Plan, to 31 October 2026, the joint count records 2,754,296 returns to Afghanistan, including 280,610 deportations. In June the United Nations Committee against Torture published its review of Pakistan, in which it asked Pakistan to “[c]onsider repealing or reviewing” the plan.
- 1 January to 31 October 2026 (UNHCR). 724,600 returns; 202,800 people assisted by UNHCR; 71,300 deportations.
- 1 January to 31 October 2026 (UNHCR and IOM). 822,359 returns, counted as 605,197 returnees, 129,489 facilitated returns and 87,673 deportations.
- 2025. About one million returns and 155,000 deportations (UNHCR); 1,125,946 returns and 154,663 deportations (UNHCR and IOM).
- Arrests and detentions in Pakistan, 1 January to 31 October 2026. 84,428 holders of Afghan Citizen Cards and undocumented Afghans, and 4,147 holders of Proof of Registration cards, the documents of registered Afghan refugees, and asylum seekers, who are counted together. The agencies say that the figures, “particularly of undocumented Afghan nationals, should be considered underreported.”
- Holders of refugee cards deported. Of the 280,610 deportations since September 2023, the joint count attributes 18,501 to holders of Proof of Registration cards, a figure based on interviews with returnees in Afghanistan. People whose cards expired and were not renewed in the government’s verification of 2021 are counted as undocumented.
- Why people left. In the agencies’ interviews since 1 April 2025, with 70,411 holders of Afghan Citizen Cards and undocumented people and 12,801 holders of refugee cards, “fear of arrest remained the main reason for return among undocumented individuals and ACC holders (95%) as well as for PoR holders (68%).” For the refugee card holders the reason is recorded as “Fear of harassment/arrest and/or deportation”.
Sources: UNHCR, Pakistan-Afghanistan Returns Emergency Response, as of 31 October 2026, published 6 November 2026 · UNHCR and IOM, Flash Update #118, Arrest and Detention and Flow Monitoring, 15 September 2023 to 31 October 2026, dated 5 November 2026 · Committee against Torture, CAT/C/PAK/CO/2, 15 June 2026
Why the counts differ
The joint flash update counts people crossing at Torkham, Ghulam Khan, Chaman, Badini and Bahramcha. UNHCR’s overview, which draws on data from both agencies, uses figures agreed across the United Nations in Afghanistan: “The UN in Afghanistan, including UNHCR, has adopted a harmonized approach to reporting returnee figures, using consolidated data and country-of-arrival figures.” The change took effect in October 2025, and UNHCR adds that data cleaning “may result in minor retroactive adjustments to previously reported data.”
Pakistan has given a different figure. In its written replies to the Committee against Torture, received on 26 September 2025, it said: “While over 600,000 Afghans have voluntarily returned, only around 30,000 have been deported.” The replies do not say what period the figures cover. At the Committee’s review in April 2026 one of its two country rapporteurs asked for an explanation of the difference between that figure and reports that more than 226,000 people had been deported between September 2023 and April 2026. The delegation replied, according to the summary record, that the number of Afghans and other foreign nationals present illegally was so large that no single country could accommodate them all, least of all one facing the security challenges Pakistan had faced in recent years. The figures do not cover the same periods, and the Coalition sets them side by side without reconciling them.
What the plan covers
The plan began with undocumented Afghans. According to the agencies’ account of the government’s directives, Pakistan announced in January 2025 that Afghans should relocate from Islamabad and Rawalpindi or face deportation; in April 2025 it extended the plan to holders of Afghan Citizen Cards; and in July 2025 it ordered the repatriation or deportation of holders of Proof of Registration cards, whose validity had expired on 30 June, later setting 1 September 2025 as the date by which they were to leave. UNHCR urged the government, the agencies record, “to exempt Afghans with international protection needs, as well as those with particular circumstances or vulnerabilities, from involuntary return.”
UNHCR’s overview of 6 November describes the conditions in which the returns now take place: “These movements are unfolding amid escalating hostilities between Afghanistan and Pakistan, further compounding an already deteriorating humanitarian and human rights situation, particularly for women and girls.”
What Pakistan says
Pakistan has given refuge to millions of Afghan refugees over some forty years, as its representative reminded the Committee in April, and it has explained the plan in its own terms. Its written replies say that the plan “was developed in response to legitimate security concerns, as well as the need to address the presence of illegal foreign nationals within Pakistan”, that it “is not an indiscriminate or arbitrary measure”, and that exit permits for Afghans who wish to move to third countries are “a clear demonstration of Pakistan’s commitment to the principle of non-refoulement”. On the treatment of Afghans in Pakistan, the replies say: “Government has zero tolerance for any form of discrimination, harassment or violence against Afghan refugees,” and “Any reports of misconduct are taken seriously”.
At the review in April, according to the Committee’s summary record, a representative of Pakistan said that the plan was being carried out “in a humane, orderly manner and in coordination with international partners”, that it “was not targeted at any specific country or nationality”, and that “[t]he repatriation process was grounded in documented verification and procedural safeguards at every stage”, with documentation checks, identity validation and administrative review “before any decision was executed”. “Multiple mechanisms for review and grievance, including judicial review, were in place,” he said, for people subject to administrative action under the plan. As a sovereign country, Pakistan had the right to ensure that those within its borders were present legally. He told the Committee that terrorism in Pakistan had increased fivefold since 2021, that investigations had found many of those responsible to be non-nationals in the country illegally, and that “[n]o country could ignore such a spike”. Pakistan, he said, “had done more with regard to Afghan refugees than a number of States Parties to the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees”. He added that the UNHCR appeal for Afghan refugees was funded at 15 percent, and that some 90,000 Afghans whom other countries had promised to resettle after the evacuations of 2021 were still waiting in Pakistan. Summary records paraphrase what speakers said; they are not verbatim transcripts.
What the Committee against Torture found
Pakistan ratified the Convention against Torture and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights on 23 June 2010. On 20 September 2011 it withdrew a reservation under which article 3 of the Convention was to be applied in conformity with its laws on extradition and foreigners. It is not a party to the Refugee Convention. Article 3 forbids returning a person to a state where there are substantial grounds for believing that he or she would be in danger of being subjected to torture. The Committee’s concluding observations, adopted on 29 April 2026, say:
Committee against Torture, concluding observations on the second periodic report of Pakistan, CAT/C/PAK/CO/2, paragraph 18. “While commending the State Party for hosting large numbers of refugees, mostly from Afghanistan, the Committee is concerned about the absence of an adequate legislative and institutional framework ensuring the right to seek asylum and protection against refoulement for all refugees and asylum-seekers in the country, and the reliance on short-term administrative measures in dealing with asylum-seekers and refugees. It is also deeply concerned about the deportation of large numbers of Afghan nationals, including children, to that country following the adoption of the Illegal Foreigners’ Repatriation Plan on 26 September 2023, without any individual assessment of their protection needs and risks of refoulement. It is further concerned about the decision of the State Party not to further extend, beyond 30 June 2025, the validity of the Proof of Registration cards, which served as identity documents for more than 1.4 million Afghan refugees.”
The Committee also said it was “seriously concerned” about reports of coercion, “including harassment and intimidation, threats of deportation and police abuse, extortion, raids and arbitrary detention”, used to return Afghans, including registered refugees. It asked Pakistan, pending an asylum law, to give everyone seeking or in need of international protection “an individualized case assessment, irrespective of their country of origin”; to ensure that “no one may be expelled, returned or extradited to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he or she would be in danger of being subjected to torture”; to provide safeguards and effective remedies, including review by an independent judicial body; to “[c]onsider repealing or reviewing the Illegal Foreigners’ Repatriation Plan, which poses serious risks for non-citizens, in particular Afghan nationals, who are being forcibly returned to their country of origin”; to investigate allegations of police abuse; and to consider becoming a party to the Refugee Convention. It asked for information on its recommendation about the plan by 1 May 2027.
On what people returned to Afghanistan face, the most recent United Nations statement the Coalition has been able to read is a briefing in Geneva on 22 May 2026 by the spokesperson for the UN Human Rights Office, Shabia Mantoo. According to the UNHCR figures cited there, almost 270,000 Afghans had been deported to Afghanistan since the start of 2026, mainly from Iran and Pakistan. The briefing recalled that the 2025 report of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan and the Human Rights Office, No Safe Haven, found that a number of Afghans returned against their will had suffered serious violations at the hands of the de facto authorities, including arbitrary arrest, detention, torture and ill-treatment. “Returning individuals at serious risk of human rights violations involuntarily to Afghanistan runs contrary to the core international law principle of non-refoulement,” the spokesperson said, adding that the High Commissioner “strongly cautions against all involuntary returns to Afghanistan in the absence of individualised risk assessments”. The briefing describes returns from all countries together and attributes none of the violations to returns from Pakistan in particular. The report itself could not be reached in a way that respected the publishing site’s access rules.
What is still being investigated, as of 8 November 2026
How many of the people deported had asked for asylum or had protection needs recognized by UNHCR. The joint count records the deportation of 18,501 holders of refugee cards since September 2023, from interviews with returnees; it does not record asylum claims or protection needs.
What has happened to people returned from Pakistan in particular. The United Nations accounts the Coalition has been able to read describe returns from all countries together.
Pakistan’s response to the Committee’s request for information, due by 1 May 2027.
Sources: UNHCR, Returns Emergency Response, as of 31 October 2026 · UNHCR and IOM, Flash Update #118, 5 November 2026 · Committee against Torture, CAT/C/PAK/CO/2, paragraphs 18, 19 and 42 · Pakistan, written replies, CAT/C/PAK/RQ/2, paragraphs 31 to 33 · summary records CAT/C/SR.2250, paragraphs 24 and 25 and CAT/C/SR.2253, paragraphs 29 to 34 · United Nations Geneva, UN Human Rights spokesperson on involuntary returns to Afghanistan, 22 May 2026 · United Nations Treaty Collection, Convention against Torture, including Pakistan’s withdrawal of reservations (note 28) · International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights · Refugee Convention