Afghans in Pakistan
citizens of Afghanistan temporarily residing in Pakistan
Afghans in Pakistan are part of the larger Afghan diaspora around the world. They are citizens of Afghanistan residing in Pakistan on a temporary basis—majority of whom are refugees and asylum seekers registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Most were born and raised in Pakistan during the last four decades. There may also be smaller number of Special Immigrant Visa applicants awaiting to immigrate to the United States.
In 1979, the Pakistani government established a number of refugee camps for the Afghans after the start of the Soviet–Afghan War. By the end of 2001, there were over four million Afghan nationals in Pakistan. While some have returned to Afghanistan many decided to stay in Pakistan. It was reported in 2023 that between 3.7 and 4.4 million Afghan nationals were in Pakistan. Of these, some had special residence permits while others had no documents. On 3 October 2023, Pakistan ordered that all undocumented foreigners must leave Pakistan within a month or face deportation.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Afghans in Pakistan” as citizens of Afghanistan temporarily residing in Pakistan. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as citizens of Afghanistan temporarily residing in Pakistan. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4689219. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1979, 2001 and 2023.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Afghans in Pakistan” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.