Reverse Refugee Flow from Pakistan to Afghanistan

United Nations officials said that fighting arising from a Pakistani military crackdown in one of the semi-autonomous tribal districts on Pakistan’s tense border with Afghanistan had driven 20,000 Pakistanis to flee as refugees into Afghanistan. This is a reverse trend, as historically refugees have fled from Afghanistan to Pakistan. After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, an estimated five million Afghans fled as refugees to neighboring countries, the largest number to Pakistan.

The reverse flow of refugees into Afghanistan has its origins, at least in part, in the American-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Many refugees who fled Afghanistan for Pakistan in the 1980s have now returned home. But many of the militants from the Taliban and Al Qaeda, who are fighting the NATO force that seeks to pacify Afghanistan, operate from sanctuaries in the Pakistani tribal areas.