Unwelcome Afghans quit Pak battle zone

However, he said an estimateda 20,000 refugees had returned home in recent weeks. Thousands more had moved to other parts of Pakistan, he said.

Iqbal Khattak, a government official in Khar, said 45 Afghans had been detained so far and some Afghan-owned shops sealed.

Police chief of Afghanistan’s Kunar province Abdul Jalal Jalal said Tuesday that a total of 30,000 people had arrived from Pakistan.

Sardar Khan, an official dealing with refugees in Kunar, said that of 4,140 families there, 70 per cent were Pakistani and 30pc Afghan.

He said seven families had arrived Monday.

About 2,800 Pakistani families - which could number up to 20 people each - have crossed into northeastern Kunar province, according to the Afghan government.

Pakistan has ordered around 60,000 Afghan refugees to leave Bajaur where security forces are battling Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants, officials said Tuesday.

The deportation order for the displaced Afghans in the lawless northwestern region of Bajaur came after a deadline set for them to go back to their homeland expired on Sunday, security officials said.

“On the orders of the Interior Ministry we have launched a crackdown against Afghan refugees who did not leave the area,” senior government official Abdul Haseeb told AFP.

He said most of the Afghans were in Bajaur illegally, having sneaked back in across the porous border around two years after returning to Afghanistan under a UN-backed repatriation programme.

“But there are also reports about Afghan refugees’ involvement in militant and anti-social activities, that is why they were being expelled,” Haseeb said.