KARACHI: Two weeks after the October 31 deadline by the Pakistan government to send back Afghans without valid documents displacing thousands already - and now, even those with valid papers planned to be sent back after December 31 the situation is grim with uncertainty writ large on their faces.

More than 1,65,000 Afghans have already fled Pakistan since the deadline expired.

“We have lived here without documents for all these years and set up our businesses with the help of locals,” Shinwari said. He is not alone.

Sadiq Ullah Kakar, legal adviser for the Afghan consulate in Karachi, explained that the majority of the Afghan refugees in Pakistan belong to the lower middle class.

“So, they do not possess any qualifications or even a tertiary level education,” said Sadiq Ullah Kakar.

The decision has put hundreds of Afghans such as Mubarak at a loss. Thousands of Afghans who have lived in Pakistan for many years are being forced to leave the country after facing massive losses in their businesses, assets, and savings.

Most Afghans who have returned or are preparing to return to their homeland now face the harsh reality of losing their businesses and homes they built for decades.

The issue has become so critical that Afghanistan’s acting commerce minister, Haji Nooruddin Azizi met with Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Jalil Abbas Jilani in Islamabad last week to discuss it.