Pakistan — Flow Monitoring of Undocumented Afghan Returnees from Pakistan (29 January - 11 February 2023)

IOM Pakistan collects data on the outflows of undocumented Afghan migrants at the Torkham and Chaman border crossing points in an effort to better understand the migration movements of undocumented Afghan migrants returning to Afghanistan from Pakistan. This exercise is part of the European Union funded project “Displacement Tracking Matrix Regional Evidence for Migration Analysis and Policy (DTM REMAP)”.

Between 29 January and 11 February 2023, 1,977 undocumented Afghan nationals spontaneously returned to Afghanistan, including 870 through the Torkham border point and 1,107 through the Chaman border point. Border authorities facilitated the return of 48 individuals due to the lack of legal documentation to remain in Pakistan. Therefore, information about these individuals are not included in the count. Although IOM identified 4,709 undocumented Afghan returnees at two border crossings, this may not reflect the total number of undocumented Afghan returnees. Moreover, for this study, only the head of household or representative of the family were interviewed. This means that the number of interviews conducted by the enumerators is lower than the number of returnees recorded by IOM. Between 15 January and 28 January 2023, IOM interviewed 89 respondents.