Pakistan has expelled nearly 500 Afghan refugees to Shurabak district of Kandahar, local Afghan officials in the southern province of Kandahar said on Wednesday as border tensions between the two neighbors continue.

Those expelled by Pakistan were living around the border regions between the two countries and some of them in Pakistan’s Quetta city, the officials added.

Pakistan also deported 59 Afghan refugees including four women and eight children from the Torkham crossing.

The Pakistani authorities have claimed these people had entered Pakistan using illegal routes.

Expulsion Violates Trilateral Agreement

In response to the Pakistani crackdown against Afghan refugees, the Afghan ministry of refugees and repatriations has said that the expulsion of refugees from Pakistan violates the trilateral agreement recently signed between Afghanistan, Pakistan and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).

“Our expectation of the Pakistani government is for them to know that migration is a humanitarian issue which should not be politically exploited,” said spokesman to MoRR Hafiz Ahmad Miakhail.
 
MoRR statistics reveal that Pakistan has also detained at least 1,600 Afghans following last week’s suicide attack in the Sufi shrine in Pakistan’s Sindh province.

Amid controversy, some reports from eastern regions of Afghanistan state that Pakistani military has resumed missile attacks on Afghan eastern provinces of Kundar and Nangahar.

“We hope that missile shelling will be stopped so that the sufferings of our people can come to an end,” said the deputy governor of Kunar.
 
As in the past, Pakistan launched similar crackdown against Afghan refugees following terrorist attacks on the Pakistani cities.

Last week Pakistan announced that it is closing its borders with Afghanistan amid terrorist threats of attacks from Afghanistan. Later Pakistan also launched missile attacks on the borders provinces in eastern Afghanistan.

According to reports, Pakistan’s fresh border policy has caused major problems for the people living on both sides of the borders. There is speculation that some of the people living in the border areas are trying to remain in touch using illegal routes.