Over the past quarter century, Pakistan has played host to, and treated honorably, more refugees than any other country in the developing world. That’s saying a lot for one of the world’s poorest nations. Since the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979, Pakistan has housed, fed and educated more than 5 million refugees, mainly Afghans, without isolating them and confining them to fetid, overcrowded camps. Rather, refugees have been allowed to attend school or to work as day laborers. Many Afghan refugees have even thrived in nearby Pakistani cities as traders, shopkeepers, and restaurant and hotel owners. “It’s fantastic what the Pakistan population has allowed in terms of hospitality,” says Ruud Lubbers, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Since the fall of the repressive Taliban regime in late 2001, more than 2 million Afghan refugees have voluntarily returned home from Pakistan, and a further 500,000 are expected to return this year. But nearly 3 million Afghans remain by choice. That’s in addition to some 500,000 Bengalis, many of them illegal immigrants from the former state of East Pakistan, and as many or more Indian Muslims who came to Pakistan on visas to visit family members and have taken up residence.
