13/12/2025
To the Afghan brothers and sisters living among us,
For over four decades, your homeland has been torn by wars you did not choose. You fled violence, chaos, and loss not in search of luxury, but in search of life. You came to Pakistan not as invaders, but as survivors. And here, you did more than survive. You built.
You built homes in our neighborhoods. You opened shops in our markets. You drove our rickshaws and taxis. You healed patients in our hospitals. You taught in our schools. You raised children who know no other home but this one. You became part of the quiet, hardworking backbone of this country’s economy and community.
And now, after years, sometimes decades, you are told to leave. Not because you committed crimes, not because you spread hatred, but because papers are missing, because policies have shifted, because politics demands it.
We see you. We see the mechanic in Karachi who fixes our cars with hands worn from 20 years of honest work. We see the baker in Peshawar whose naan has fed generations of students. We see the widow in Quetta who raised Pakistani and Afghan children side by side after losing her husband to a war far away. We see the young Afghan who studied in our universities and now heals patients in our hospitals.
You are not a burden. You are testament to human resilience.
Pakistan gave you refuge once and in return, you gave us your labor, your enterprise, your art, your faith, and your friendship. That is not a debt. That is a shared story.
To those who say you must leave in the name of security or order:
A civilized nation does not punish the innocent for the crimes of the few.
A just system does not uproot families based on origin alone.
A humane society does not treat human beings like cargo to be returned.
Every individual who lives peacefully, who contributes, who harms no one, has a right to belong where they have built their life. That is not a Pakistani value or an Afghan value that is a human value.
We are not just losing "refugees" or "migrants."
We are losing neighbors.
We are losing friends.
We are losing a piece of our own soul as a nation that once proudly gave shelter to the world's most persecuted.
To the Afghan people here: Thank you for all you have given. Your struggle is seen. Your pain is shared. Your place in the tapestry of this region is permanent, no matter what papers say.
And to my fellow Pakistanis:
Let us not forget who we are. We are a people formed by partition, shaped by migration, defined by hospitality. Turning away those who have lived beside us for generations is not strength. It is amnesia.
A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its most vulnerable. Today, that measure is being taken.
