PESHAWAR: Pakistan has begun preparations to launch the second phase of its repatriation drive to send nearly one million ‘documented’ Afghans back to their homeland, with directives to district authorities and police to map and collect data of their whereabouts across the country, documents reveal.

An official said instructions had been issued to district administrations and police to expedite the mapping of Afghan Citizen Card (ACC) holders.

No date has yet been announced, but an official said the campaign to repatriate hundreds of thousands of ACC holders could begin in early to mid-summer, following approval from the federal government.

“We have already started the mapping process,” Abid Majeed, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s additional chief secretary said.

“It will pick up the pace after Ramazan and we hope to complete the survey before April 30,” he said.

According to UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, there are 2.18 million documented Afghan refugees in Pakistan. This includes the 1.3m refugees holding Proof of Registration (PoR) cards as per the census carried in 2006-07, as well as an additional 880,000 refugees granted ACCs following a registration drive in 2017.

The collapse of the neighbouring republic following the return of Taliban to power in August 2021 saw another influx of worried Afghans into Pakistan. Offi­cials put their number anywhere between 600,000 and 800,000, some with valid travel documents, but an uncertain future.

Pakistan launched the first round of repatriation of what it called “undocumented aliens” in November last year.

No official data has been released as to how many of the estimated 1.7m undocumented Afghans have left for their country since November 2023, though the figure likely fell hugely short of what is now being considered a grossly exaggerated number.

But according to informed sources, the total number of undocumented Afghans who have returned to Afghanistan via Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan in the first round stands at around the half million-mark.

Amid mounting pressure to speed up the repatriation of undocumented Afghans in the face of a low exit headcount, officials approached the Ministry of Interior soon afterwards, wondering about the origin of the ‘1.7m undocumented Afghans’ claim and sought revalidation of the figure.

No one knows how many of the 880,000 ACC holders remain in the country, or how many of them have opted to return to Afghanistan voluntarily.

Officials say they have approached the Ministry of Interior to double-check the figure with the National Database and Registration Authority.