As a brutal winter approaches, Sajjad’s aunty has been forced back to the Taliban

Sajjad Askary, 27, has just finished his law degree at Monash University.

In between completing assignments on Australian family law, he’s faced a challenge few other classmates have had to contend with: finding a safe house for his aunty and her children in Kabul, where they are hiding out from the Taliban.

Hazara Australian young leaders Sajjad Askary and Sitarah Mohammadi both fear for the safety of their families overseas.Credit: Luis Ascui

As the world’s attention is focused on the war in  Gaza, another major humanitarian crisis is emerging. Authorities in Pakistan recently announced that all undocumented migrants in the country would need to leave by the end of October or face deportation.

The Refugee Council of Australia’s chief executive, Paul Power, said there had been an escalation in violence against Afghan refugees in Pakistan – many of whom are awaiting visa application outcomes for countries including Australia and have family here – following the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul in August 2021.

“We are hearing of Afghans are facing increased harassment by police, being detained illegally, their homes are being confiscated and demolished, their businesses are being dismantled, and they are being forced to cross the border to Afghanistan,” Power said.

More than 335,000 people were returned to Afghanistan between the beginning of October and November 16, according to the UN refugee agency.

Afghan refugee children warm themselves with fire in a camp near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. It’s almost winter in Afghanistan – when temperatures in some areas regularly plummet to as low as minus 20 degrees.Credit: AP

Pakistan has a long tradition of providing sanctuary to persecuted Afghans – many of whom have resided in the country for generations. But a dramatic change of policy came in early October. Islamabad ordered all undocumented migrants – of whom there are 1.7 million Afghans, according to Pakistani authorities – to leave the country immediately.

Human Rights Watch’s Asia director, Elaine Pearson, said it was a “blatantly political move by the government to try and win votes” at Pakistan’s next general election, scheduled for February.

Australia is home to around 60,000 people born in Afghanistan, according to data collected at the last census. In Melbourne, much of the Afghan community lives around the multicultural area of Dandenong.

Mohammadi’s sister, brother-in-law, nieces and nephews are still in Pakistan. But the looming threat of forced return “hangs heavy” over their family in Melbourne. “The atmosphere of returning refugees from Pakistan has injected fear and instability into our daily lives, leaving us in a state of hopelessness and uncertainty about what lies ahead,” she said.

Human Rights Watch’s Asia director, Elaine Pearson, says women and girls forced back to Afghanistan are particularly vulnerable.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

Askary and Mohammadi, who were joint recipients of the Liberty Victoria Young Voltaire Human Rights Award in 2022, also fear that their human rights advocacy in Australia could further endanger their families abroad.

The Taliban have long targeted people – and killed them – for having an association with Australia.

The majority of Australia’s Afghan population – and indeed most Afghans residing in Pakistan – are of the long-persecuted Hazara ethnicity. Hazaras are culturally distinct, speak a dialect of Persian and mostly practise Shia Islam in Sunni-majority Afghanistan.

As refugees are forced back to Afghanistan, attacks by Sunni extremist groups against their mosques, schools and other community sites have ramped up. ISIS affiliates claimed a bus bombing in a mostly Shia neighbourhood of Kabul in early November that killed seven people.

It was the third “explosive attack” on Hazaras in under a month, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, said on social media.

Pearson of Human Rights Watch said there was an immediate risk to people’s lives once they had been forced back to Afghanistan and identified by the Taliban or other extremists. “There is a particular risk for Afghan women and girls who are sent back to Afghanistan,” she said.

What’s more, it’s almost winter in Afghanistan – where temperatures in some areas regularly plummet to as low as minus 20 degrees. In early 2023, the Afghan Ministry of Disaster Management reported that over 160 people had died from the cold.

Zohal Azra is a Hazara Australian lawyer and founder of the community media organisation Huma media, in western Sydney. “We’re extremely worried – sick,” said Azra, who, like Askary, has already had family members forced to return to Kabul.

Sydney lawyer and media start-up founder Zohal Azra.

“Some people who were deported from Quetta, Pakistan had been living in that country for 30 years … How will they survive in a completely new environment?”

One relative of Azra’s, whom she asked not to be identified due to security risks, has a heart condition. It is unlikely that person will be able to access treatment in Afghanistan, where the health system has all but collapsed.

Many of those awaiting resettlement in third countries like Australia, Canada or the US, have had their Pakistani visas expire while the long humanitarian visa process plays out. Azra said the Australian government needed to do more to help affected families.

In 2022, Australia allocated 31,500 places in the humanitarian resettlement program for Afghans through to 2026. This masthead understands that as of November 3, less than half – 12,985 – of the humanitarian visas had been granted to refugees, and fewer still have made it to Australia.

“I have many cousins here who have close family that are very close to getting to come to Australia or Canada or go to America,” Azra said. “In terms of Australia, we have no communication from the government yet. Basically, we have no clarity and we have been left in the dark.”

Pearson said Human Rights Watch was calling for governments such as Australia’s to expedite the resettlement of Afghans, and also to support Pakistan financially to pay for the cost of hosting those fleeing persecution.

A spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade told this masthead that Australia was concerned about Pakistan’s changed policy and had urged the government to “act with restraint and moderation” in its treatment of refugees and not deport anyone to Afghanistan.

More than 335,000 people have already been forced back to Afghanistan from Pakistan.Credit: AP

The spokesperson said that consular officials had been in contact with affected Afghans in Pakistan and was engaging with Australia’s Afghan community about the issue, including meeting with community leaders and responding to enquiries from community members.

“Australia condemns attacks targeting the Hazara community in Afghanistan, as well as actions of the Taliban which marginalise and systematically discriminate against other minority communities,” they said.

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