Afghanistan

Daniyal’s arrival is not a miracle story – it's a chilling symbol of the desperate circumstances confronting Afghan refugees in Pakistan today.

At the Sixth Trilateral Foreign Ministers’ Dialogue held in Kabul on 20 August 2025, Afghan Acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, and Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar reached a landmark agreement to extend CPEC into Afghanistan.

In the quiet classrooms of Pakistani universities, thousands of Afghan students – many in the last stretch of their advanced degrees – are living with an unrelenting countdown. On 31 August 2025, Pakistan’s government has ordered that all Afghan nationals must leave the country or face arrest and deportation.

The global human rights watchdog said that Afghanistan now faces one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, exacerbated by donor governments’ aid cuts and the return of 1.9 million refugees expelled from Iran and Pakistan. 

The World Food Programme (WFP) has sounded a dire warning about Afghanistan’s escalating hunger crisis, as an economic downturn, recurring droughts, and the forced return of thousands of Afghan migrants strain the country’s fragile infrastructure and limited resources.

The situation is especially dire for Afghan migrants in Pakistan, where visa renewals have been suspended, and Proof of Registration (PoR) cards invalidated without clear guidance. Migrants are reporting increased police harassment and arbitrary detentions.

Britain has maintained an open stance on limited engagement to support humanitarian aid delivery and address shared concerns over migration and terrorism.

More than one million Afghan refugees in Pakistan are facing a critical moment as their Proof of Registration (PoR) cards expired on end-June this year.