Tajikistan has reportedly intensified its campaign to detain and forcibly deport Afghan refugees, including many with valid residency permits. According to several sources, the Tajik government recently issued a 15-day ultimatum for Afghans to leave the country voluntarily, triggering widespread fear and uncertainty among the community.
The ultimatum follows a series of sporadic but limited deportations of Afghan refugees from Tajikistan in recent years.
Just in April of this year, Tajikistan deported around 50 Afghans who held refugee documents issued by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Most of the deportees worked as taxi drivers in Vahdat, a town 15 kilometers outside Dushanbe. The refugees were reportedly summoned to the local state security department, where their documents were confiscated before they were transported to the border in two vehicles.
In the first week of June, the Ministry of Migration Affairs of the Taliban-led government in Afghanistan announced that 49 Afghans had been deported from Tajikistan for “unknown reasons.” The migrants – 36 of whom held residence permits in Tajikistan, while 13 others had valid visas – were returned to Afghanistan via the Sherkhan border crossing in Kunduz province.
Tajik authorities have not issued any statements regarding these recent cases. Previously, Afghan refugees were deported from Tajikistan for publicly justified, if dubious, reasons such as having an unkempt beard, wearing foreign-style clothing, consuming alcohol, engaging in political discussions on social media, or generally violating residency rules.
The new wave of deportations is unexplained and appears to mainly target male Afghan refugees residing in Vahdat and Rudaki districts, both suburbs of the capital. The detentions are taking place at workplaces and in residential areas without prior warning or communication with the families of those detained, many of whom are sole providers for their households.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Tajikistan has served as a refuge for citizens of neighboring Afghanistan fleeing the civil war in the 1990s, the U.S. invasion in the 2000s, and the return of the Taliban in 2021. The Tajik government, which has long used the fight against religious extremism in the region as a pretext for cracking down on domestic opposition, positioned itself as unabashedly anti-Taliban to bolster its own popularity and at first welcomed the waves of refugees in 2021. Current unofficial estimates place the number of Afghan refugees in the country between 10,000 and 13,000, a number difficult to verify. A significant portion of these Afghans are awaiting decisions on immigration cases, particularly resettlement opportunities through countries like Canada.
However, Russia’s recent recognition of the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan is forcing the Tajik government to tone down its anti-Taliban position and is giving Dushanbe a convenient excuse to deport thousands of refugees straining the country’s already-thin social services. Forced deportations at this stage will derail the refugees’ asylum applications to third countries and place them in immediate danger, as many are former civil servants or military personnel associated with the previous Afghan government. After the fall of the Afghan Republic in August 2021, many fled to neighboring countries such as Tajikistan to escape potential retribution from the Taliban.
The crackdown in Tajikistan mirrors increasing pressures in Iran and Pakistan, where the vast majority of 6 million Afghan refugees reside. Both countries have ramped up deportations of Afghan refugees in recent months, expelling thousands each day through increasingly aggressive and punitive measures. In June alone, the two countries expelled at least 71,000 Afghan refugees.
The UNHCR has called on the authorities of host countries to refrain from deporting Afghans back to Afghanistan, where their lives could be in danger, urging instead to consider resettlement to third countries or proper legal procedures. Numerous reports have documented incidents of violence, intimidation, and even extrajudicial killings of returnees in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. In one such incident in June, the Taliban arrested about 20 young men in Panjshir Province for their alleged links to anti-Taliban armed groups after they were deported from Iran.
With fewer and fewer countries offering relocation or asylum options, Afghan refugees in Central and South Asia are increasingly trapped in a desperate situation. Many are now compelled to choose between uncertain futures in host countries and the deadly risks of returning to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.
