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Nearly two decades since Nepal became a secular republic, a surge of pro-monarchy protests have swept the Himalayan nation, fuelled by economic despair and disillusionment with current leaders.Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets last month in a royalist rally that turned violent, with two people killed and more than 100 arrested.It was one of the latest in a wave of protests demanding the restoration of the monarchy, which has grown in tandem with popular dissatisfaction over political instability, corruption and lacklustre economic development.The Hindu-majority nation became a secular republic in 2008 after parliament abolished the monarchy in a peace deal to end a decade-long civil war in which more than 16,000 people died.Rajendra Lingden, chairperson of the royalist Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP), Nepal’s fifth-largest party, said the king is linked with national identity and pride.”We do not seek monarchy as a ruling institution, but rather as a guardian that safeguards national interests and prevents foreign interference,” Lingden told AFP.In 2017, RPP won a single seat in parliament. Then in the last election in 2022, their royalist and pro-Hindu agenda gained them 14 seats.”The country faces instability, prices are high, people are jobless, and there is a lack of education and healthcare facilities”, said Rajindra Kunwar, 43, a teacher who joined a royalist demonstration last month. “That’s why we need the king back.”- ‘Outdated concept’ -Former king Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah, 77, was crowned in 2001 after his elder brother king Birendra Bir Bikram Shah and his family were killed in a palace massacre that wiped out most of the royal family.His coronation took place as the Maoist insurgency raged in far-flung corners of Nepal.Shah suspended the constitution and dissolved parliament in 2005, triggering a democratic uprising in which the Maoists sided with Nepal’s political establishment to orchestrate huge street protests.That eventually precipitated the end of the conflict, with parliament voting in 2008 to abolish Nepal’s 240-year-old Hindu monarchy.”I have assisted in and respected the verdict of the people,” Shah said in a short address before leaving his palace, adding that he “will not leave this country” and go into exile.As he departed, many gathered to cheer the monarchy’s end, while a few royalists wept.Mainstream politicians have dismissed a return to the past. “Monarchy is a failed and outdated concept,” said Rajaram Bartaula, chief whip of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist), which governs in a coalition with the Nepali Congress Party.”Conscious Nepalis of the 21st century will not accept the return of the monarchy,” he added. The World Bank notes that impoverished Nepal faces multiple challenges.But it also said this month that real GDP grew by 4.9 percent in the first half of the 2025 financial year — up from 4.3 percent in the same period a year earlier — primarily due to a “pickup in agricultural and industrial sectors”.- ‘Save the nation’ -The deposed king had largely refrained from commenting on Nepal’s fractious politics — but in the last few months, he made several public appearances, mainly visiting religious sites with supporters.”It is now time,” the former king said in a statement on the eve of national democracy day in February before embarking on a tour of several districts. “If we wish to save our nation and maintain national unity, I call on all countrymen to support us for Nepal’s prosperity and progress.”His arrival in Kathmandu airport last month drew thousands of supporters, who waved the national flag and chanted: “Come king, save the nation”.Political analyst Hari Sharma said the royalists were seizing an opportunity as dissatisfaction grows among many ordinary Nepalis.”The royalists have found the chance to articulate their demands and frustrations, especially in a global climate where right-wing conservative ideas are gaining traction,” Hari Sharma said.

Global temperatures hovered at historic highs in March, the EU agency that monitors climate change said on Tuesday, prolonging an unprecedented heat streak that has pushed the bounds of scientific explanation. In Europe, it was the hottest March ever recorded by a significant margin, said the Copernicus Climate Change Service. That drove rainfall extremes across a continent warming faster than any other, as planet-heating fossil fuel emissions keep rising.The world meanwhile saw the second-hottest March in the Copernicus dataset, sustaining a near-unbroken spell of record or near-record-breaking temperatures that has persisted since July 2023.Since then, virtually every month has been at least 1.5 degrees Celsius hotter than it was before the industrial revolution, when humans began burning massive amounts of coal, oil and gas.March was 1.6C above pre-industrial times, extending an anomaly so unusual that scientists are still trying to fully explain it.”That we’re still at 1.6C above preindustrial is indeed remarkable,” said Friederike Otto of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment at Imperial College London. “We’re very firmly in the grip of human-caused climate change,” she told AFP.Scientists had predicted the extreme run of global temperatures would subside after a warming El Nino event peaked in early 2024, but they have stubbornly lingered well into 2025. “We are still experiencing extremely high temperatures worldwide. This is an exceptional situation,” Robert Vautard, a leading scientist with the United Nations’ climate expert panel IPCC, told AFP. – ‘Climate breakdown’ – Scientists warn that every fraction of a degree of global warming increases the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events such as heatwaves, heavy rainfall and droughts.Climate change is not just about rising temperatures but the knock-on effect of all that extra heat being trapped in the atmosphere and seas by greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane.Warmer seas mean higher evaporation and greater moisture in the atmosphere, causing heavier deluges and feeding energy into storms.This also affects global rainfall patterns.March in Europe was 0.26C above the previous hottest record for the month set in 2014, Copernicus said.Some parts of the continent experienced the “driest March on record and others their wettest” for about half a century, said Samantha Burgess of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, which runs the Copernicus climate monitor. Bill McGuire, a climate scientist from University College London, said the contrasting extremes “shows clearly how a destabilised climate means more and bigger weather extremes”.”As climate breakdown progresses, more broken records are only to be expected,” he told AFP.Concerns over the global economy were dominating headlines at a time when India was enduring scorching heat and Australia was swamped by floods, said Helen Clarkson, CEO of Climate Group.”The threat to the planet is existential, but our attention is elsewhere,” Clarkson said.- Puzzling heat -The global heat surge pushed 2023 and then 2024 to be the hottest years on record.Last year was also the first full calendar year to exceed 1.5C — the safer warming limit agreed by most nations under the Paris climate accord.This single year breach does not represent a permanent crossing of the 1.5C threshold, which is measured over decades. But scientists warn the goal is slipping out of reach.If the 30-year trend leading up to then continued, the world would hit 1.5C by June 2030.Scientists are unanimous that burning fossil fuels has largely driven long-term global warming.But they are less certain about what else might have contributed to this record heat spike.Vautard said there were “phenomena that remain to be explained,” but the exceptional temperatures still fell within the upper range of scientific projections of climate change.Experts think changes in global cloud patterns, airborne pollution and Earth’s ability to store carbon in natural sinks like forests and oceans could be among factors contributing to the planet overheating.Scientists say the current period is likely to be the warmest the Earth has been for the last 125,000 years.

Explosive knocks from Nicholas Pooran and Mitchell Marsh set up a tense four-run win for Lucknow Super Giants in a high-scoring IPL clash against Kolkata Knight Riders on Tuesday.Marsh smashed 81 for his fourth half-century of the tournament and Pooran an unbeaten 36-ball 87 to fire Lucknow to 238-3 at Kolkata’s Eden Gardens.Kolkata mounted a strong reply as skipper Ajinkya Rahane struck 61 off 35 balls and Rinku Singh blasted an unbeaten 38 in a late blitz, but the home team finished on 234-7.Lucknow have three wins from five matches. Kolkata, who won their third IPL title last year, have three defeats from their five outings.LSG fast bowler Akash Deep and Shardul Thakur took two wickets each and struck at key moments to trigger a middle-order collapse during which KKR lost four wickets in 16 balls.Thakur dismissed Rahane and Andre Russell, for seven, while Deep cut short Venkatesh Iyer’s knock on 45.Sunil Narine got the chase off to a brisk start with his 13-ball 30 and after his departure Rahane and Iyer kept up the charge until Kolkata lost their way.Earlier, the in-form Marsh laid the foundations for Lucknow’s mammoth total in his 99-run opening stand with Aiden Markram, who hit 47.Marsh took down the bowlers with regular boundaries and Markram was equally fluent in his 28-ball knock before Harshit Rana denied the South African a fifty.Marsh reached his half-century with a boundary and with Pooran put on another destructive partnership until Russell broke through.Russell dismissed Marsh but Pooran kept up the onslaught to reach his fifty in just 21 balls before he smacked Russell for three fours and two sixes in a 24-run 18th over.Lucknow skipper Rishabh Pant did not bat and is still waiting to justify his record auction price of $3.21 million.Pooran is the leading run-scorer in the 2025 IPL so far with 288 runs including three half-centuries in five matches, scoring at a strike-rate of 225.Marsh has accumulated 265 runs and is second on the list.

The Philippines took possession of the first of two corvette-class warships with “advanced weapons and radar systems” on Tuesday as it faces growing pressure from Beijing in the disputed South China Sea.The arrival of the 3,200-ton BRP Miguel Malvar is part of a two-ship deal with South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries in 2021.Its sister ship, the BRP Diego Silang, was formally launched in Ulsan, South Korea, last month but has yet to begin the journey to the Philippines.Corvettes are small, fast warships mainly used to protect other vessels from attack.The arrival of the ship marked “a critical step toward developing a self-reliant and credible defense posture”, the Philippine defence department said in a statement.It follows months of confrontations between Philippine and Chinese vessels in the South China Sea, which Beijing claims almost in its entirety despite an international ruling its assertion has no merit.”(The) Miguel Malvar is here today not only to serve as a deterrent and protector of our waters but also as an important component in joint and combined operations” with allies, Philippine defence chief Gilberto Teodoro said at a Subic Bay naval base ceremony.The deal for the two ships was first unveiled in 2021, five years after Hyundai Heavy Industries had won a contract to build two new frigates for the Philippine Navy.The military said last month that the two corvettes would “significantly enhance the country’s naval capabilities amid growing security challenges in the West Philippine Sea”.On Tuesday, the Philippine Coast Guard separately welcomed the donation of 20 Australian surveillance drones its commander said could extend its vessels’ coverage area by a “significant distance”.Using drones will “save fuel and it will be less risky for our people”, Commandant Ronnie Gil Gavan said at a ceremony in coastal Bataan province.The Philippines has been deepening ties with allies and more aggressively pushing back on Beijing’s sweeping South China Sea claims since President Ferdinand Marcos took office in 2022.In December, Manila said it planned to acquire the US mid-range Typhon missile system in a push to secure its maritime interests.Beijing warned such a purchase could spark a regional “arms race”.Last week, the United States said it had approved the possible sale of $5.58 billion in F-16 fighter jets to the Philippines, though Manila said the deal was “still in the negotiation phase”.

China vowed on Tuesday to “fight to the end” against fresh tariffs of 50 percent threatened by US President Donald Trump, further aggravating a trade war that has already wiped trillions off global markets.Trump has upended the world economy with sweeping tariffs that have raised the spectre of an international recession, but has ruled out any pause in his aggressive trade policy despite a dramatic market sell-off.Beijing — Washington’s major economic rival but also a key trading partner — responded by announcing its own 34 percent duties on US goods to come into effect on Thursday, deepening a showdown between the world’s two largest economies. The swift retaliation from China sparked a fresh warning from Trump that he would impose additional levies if Beijing refused to stop pushing back against his barrage of tariffs — a move that would drive the overall levies on Chinese goods to 104 percent.”I have great respect for China but they can not do this,” Trump said in the White House.”We are going to have one shot at this… I’ll tell you what, it is an honour to do it.”China swiftly hit back, blasting what it called “blackmailing” by the US and vowing “countermeasures” if Washington imposes tariffs on top of the 34 percent extra that were due to come in force on Wednesday.”If the US insists on going its own way, China will fight it to the end,” a spokesperson for Beijing’s commerce ministry said on Tuesday.In a mounting war of words between Beijing and Washington, China’s foreign ministry also Tuesday condemned “ignorant and impolite” remarks by US Vice President JD Vance in which he complained the US had for too long borrowed money from “Chinese peasants”.The ministry said that “pressure, threats and blackmail are not the right way to deal with China”.Beijing urged Washington to instead “adopt an attitude of equality, respect and mutual benefit” if it wanted to engage in talks.- Market turmoil -A 10 percent “baseline” tariff on US imports from around the world took effect Saturday, and a slew of countries will be hit by higher duties from Wednesday, including the levy of 34 percent for Chinese goods as well as 20 percent for EU products.Trump’s tariffs have roiled global markets in the last days, with trillions of dollars wiped off combined stock market valuations in recent sessions. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng collapsed by 13.2 percent on Monday — its worst day since the Asian financial crisis — before paring back some of those losses on Tuesday.But stocks in Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam — a key export hub — sank on Tuesday, as they resumed trading after bank holidays.In financial powerhouse Singapore, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong told parliament his government was “very disappointed by the US move”.”These are not actions one does to a friend.”Trump doubled down Monday, saying he was “not looking” at any pause in tariff implementation.He also scrapped any meetings with China over tariffs, but said the United States was ready for talks with any country willing to negotiate.After equities took a hammering in Shanghai, China’s central bank issued a statement before trading resumed Tuesday to underline it was standing behind a sovereign fund as it buys up exchange traded funds to stabilise the market. With investors seeking any relief from the ruinous trade war, stocks in Tokyo leapt Tuesday after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggested in an interview with Fox News that Japan would get “priority” in negotiations over the US tariffs “just because they came forward very quickly”.Scores of countries have sought talks, Bessent said, adding “through good negotiations, all we will do is see levels come down”.- ‘Don’t be Weak!’ -While meeting Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the first leader to lobby Trump in person over the levies, Trump said: “There can be permanent tariffs, and there can also be negotiations, because there are things that we need beyond tariffs.”EU trade ministers were in Luxembourg on Monday to discuss the bloc’s response, with Germany and France having advocated a tax targeting US tech giants.”We must not exclude any option on goods, on services,” said French Trade Minister Laurent Saint-Martin.The 27-nation bloc should “open the European toolbox, which is very comprehensive and can also be extremely aggressive”, he said.While markets continued its wild ride, Trump told Americans: “Don’t be Weak! Don’t be Stupid!”.The 78-year-old Republican believes the tariffs will revive America’s lost manufacturing base by forcing foreign companies to relocate to the United States, rather than making goods abroad.But most economists question that and say his tariffs are arbitrary.JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon warned of coming inflation, adding “whether or not the menu of tariffs causes a recession remains in question, but it will slow down growth”.burs-oho/hmn

Nepali mountaineers on Tuesday searched for two people swept away by a powerful avalanche on the world’s 10th highest mountain Annapurna, officials said. The 8,091-metre (26,545-foot) Annapurna is a dangerous and difficult climb, and the avalanche-prone Himalayan peak has a higher death rate than Everest.Three men were climbing the mountain as part of the first ascent of this spring season when a “huge avalanche swept down” around midday Monday, said expedition company Seven Summit Treks. The trio were ferrying oxygen cylinders used for the summit push for later climbers, when they were hit by huge blocks of snow. It swept away two climbers — Ngima Tashi and Rima Rinje — who work with Seven Summit Treks. “Our focus is on search and rescue… helicopters have also been deployed,” Thaneswar Guragai from the company said Tuesday.One of them managed to keep hold, the company said in a post. “We’ll do our best to locate and rescue our men,” the company said. Nepal is home to eight of the world’s 10 highest peaks and welcomes hundreds of adventurers each spring, when temperatures are warm and winds typically calm.Avalanches and landslides are common in the upper reaches of the Himalayas, especially during the winter season.Scientists have said that climate change spurred by humans burning fossil fuels is making weather events more severe, super-charged by warmer oceans.

Global temperatures hovered at historic highs in March, Europe’s climate monitor said on Tuesday, prolonging an extraordinary heat streak that has tested scientific expectations.In Europe, it was the hottest March ever recorded by a significant margin, said the Copernicus Climate Change Service, driving rainfall extremes across a continent warming faster than any other.The world meanwhile saw the second-hottest March in the Copernicus dataset, sustaining a near-unbroken spell of record or near-record-breaking temperatures that has persisted since July 2023.Since then, virtually every month has been at least 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) hotter than it was before the industrial revolution when humanity began burning massive amounts of coal, oil and gas. March was 1.6C (2.9F) above pre-industrial times, prolonging an anomaly so extreme that scientists are still trying to fully explain it.”That we’re still at 1.6C above preindustrial is indeed remarkable,” said Friederike Otto of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment at Imperial College London. “We’re very firmly in the grip of human-caused climate change,” she told AFP.- Contrasting extremes – Scientists warn that every fraction of a degree of global warming increases the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events such as heatwaves, heavy rainfall and droughts.Climate change is not just about rising temperatures but the knock-on effect of all that extra heat being trapped in the atmosphere and seas by greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane.Warmer seas mean higher evaporation and greater moisture in the atmosphere, causing heavier deluges and feeding energy into cyclones, but also affecting global rainfall patterns.March in Europe was 0.26C (0.47F) above the previous hottest record for the month set in 2014, Copernicus said.It was also “a month with contrasting rainfall extremes” across the continent, said Samantha Burgess of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, which runs the Copernicus climate monitor. Some parts of Europe experienced their “driest March on record and others their wettest” for about half a century, Burgess said.Elsewhere in March, scientists said that climate change intensified an extreme heatwave across Central Asia and fuelled conditions for extreme rainfall which killed 16 people in Argentina.- Persistent heat -The spectacular surge in global heat pushed 2023 and then 2024 to become the hottest years on record.Last year was also the first full calendar year to exceed 1.5C: the safer warming limit agreed by most nations under the Paris climate accord.This represented a temporary, not permanent breach, of this longer-term target, but scientists have warned that the goal of keeping temperatures below that threshold is slipping further out of reach.Scientists had expected that the extraordinary heat spell would subside after a warming El Nino event peaked in early 2024, and conditions gradually shifted to a cooling La Nina phase.But global temperatures have remained stubbornly high, sparking debate among scientists about what other factors could be driving warming to the top end of expectations.The European Union monitor uses billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations to aid its climate calculations.Its records go back to 1940, but other sources of climate data — such as ice cores, tree rings and coral skeletons — allow scientists to expand their conclusions using evidence from much further in the past.Scientists say the current period is likely the warmest the Earth has been for the last 125,000 years.

Stock markets and oil prices slumped further on a black Monday for markets as US President Donald Trump stood firm over his tariffs despite recession fears.Trading floors across the globe experienced waves of further selling after last week’s sharp losses, with Trump telling Americans to “be strong, courageous, and patient,” minutes before the New York stock market opened to drops of over three percent.Both the Dow and S&P 500 finished volatile sessions lower while the Nasdaq mustered a modest gain.Much worse hit was Hong Kong, which collapsed by 13.2 percent in its worst day in nearly three decades.Trillions of dollars have been wiped off combined stock market valuations in recent sessions. Taipei stocks suffered their worst fall on record Monday, tanking 9.7 percent. Tokyo closed down by almost eight percent. Frankfurt fell as much as 10 percent in early trading before paring back losses to end the day down 4.1 percent.”The carnage in global equity markets has continued,” said Thomas Mathews, Asia Pacific head of markets at Capital Economics.A 10 percent “baseline” tariff on imports from around the world took effect Saturday.A slew of countries will be hit by higher duties from Wednesday, with levies of 34 percent for Chinese goods and 20 percent for EU products.Beijing last week announced its own 34 percent tariff on US goods, which will come into effect on Thursday.Trump on Monday threatened to slap an additional 50 percent tariff on China if Beijing did not withdraw its retaliation plans — heightening the prospect of another round of tit-for-tat hikes.Major US indices briefly surged into positive territory following a report that White House economic advisor Kevin Hassett said Trump was considering a 90-day tariff pause.But markets retreated when the White House denied the story posting Hassett’s interview on Fox News that had been misquoted.- Bitter medicine -Hopes that the US president would rethink his policy in light of the turmoil were dashed on Sunday when he said he would not make a deal with other countries unless trade deficits were solved.”Sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something,” he said of the market pain that has wiped trillions of dollars off company valuations, which impacts the retirement savings of many Americans.In a letter to shareholders, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon warned that Trump’s broad tariffs “will likely increase inflation.””Whether or not the menu of tariffs causes a recession remains in question, but it will slow down growth,” Dimon said, concluding that “the recent tariffs will likely increase inflation.”With the start of the first quarter earnings reports, the market is likely to get a flurry of updated outlooks by companies that could further dampen sentiment.Concerns about future energy demand saw oil prices slide more than two percent, having dropped some seven percent Friday. Both main contracts hit their lowest levels since 2021, but then cut losses.- Key figures around 2050 GMT -New York – Dow: DOWN 0.9 percent at 37,965.60 (close)New York – S&P 500: DOWN 0.2 percent at 5,062.25 (close)New York – Nasdaq Composite: UP 0.1 percent at 15,603.26 (close)London – FTSE 100: DOWN 4.4 percent at 7,702.08 (close)Paris – CAC 40: DOWN 4.8 percent at 6,927.12 (close)Frankfurt – DAX: DOWN 4.1 percent at 19,789.02 (close)Tokyo – Nikkei 225: DOWN 7.8 percent at 31,136.58 (close)Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: DOWN 13.2 percent at 19,828.30 (close)Shanghai – Composite: DOWN 7.3 percent at 3,096.58 (close)West Texas Intermediate: DOWN 2.1 percent at $60.70 per barrelBrent North Sea Crude: DOWN 2.1 percent at $64.21 per barrelEuro/dollar: DOWN at $1.0904 from $1.0956 on FridayPound/dollar: DOWN at $1.2723 from $1.2887Dollar/yen: UP at 147.83 yen from 146.93 yen Euro/pound: UP at 85.68 pence from 85.01 penceburs-jmb/bjt

Royal Challengers Bengaluru survived a batting blitz from Mumbai Indians skipper Hardik Pandya to win a thriller by 12 runs on Monday in the IPL and spoil Jasprit Bumrah’s return from an injury.Mumbai named Bumrah in the XI as the India bowler returned three months after he missed the final day of the fifth Test against Australia in Sydney due to a back injury.Bengaluru’s Virat Kohli and skipper Rajat Patidar hit 67 and 64 to steer Bengaluru to 221-5 after being invited to bat first at Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium.In reply, Pandya smashed a 15-ball 42 and Tilak Varma struck 56, but five-time champions Mumbai finished on 209-9 for their fourth defeat in five matches this season.Hardik’s elder brother and Bengaluru spinner Krunal Pandya held his nerve to bowl the final over when Mumbai needed 19 runs but lost three wickets including two on the first two balls.Krunal, a left-arm spinner, returned figures of 4-45 in Bengaluru’s third win in four matches.Mumbai slipped to 99-4 including former captain Rohit Sharma out for 17, but Hardik and the left-handed Varma put on 89 runs to turn on the heat with fours and sixes.Bhuvneshwar Kumar dismissed Varma and then Australia fast bowler Josh Hazlewood took down Pandya for his second wicket in the 19th over to derail the chase.Left-arm medium-pace bowler Yash Dayal also took two key wickets including Rohit, bowled for 17 after he came in as an impact substitute, and Suryakumar Yadav for 28.Earlier, Hardik took two wickets and Bumrah registered figures of 0-29 in Bengaluru’s mammoth total as Kohli and Patidar bossed the opposition bowling.Kohli lost opening partner Phil Salt on the second ball of the match off New Zealand left-arm quick Trent Boult, but soon took on the bowlers with regular boundaries.He put on 91 runs for the second wicket with left-hander Devdutt Padikkal, who hit 37 off 22 balls, and reached his fifty off 29 balls with a six.Padikkal fell but Kohli put together 48 runs with Patidar until Hardik hit back.Hardik sent back Kohli and then England’s Liam Livingstone, out for a duck, in the space of four deliveries.The runs kept coming as Patidar was joined by Jitesh Sharma, who hit an unbeaten 40, and the two hammered 69 runs off 27 balls.Jitesh finished with a flourish in his 19-ball knock laced with two fours and four sixes despite a disciplined last over from Bumrah.

Thousands of Afghans have crossed the border from Pakistan in recent days, the United Nations and Taliban officials said, as Islamabad ramped up pressure for them to return to Afghanistan.Pakistan last month set an early April deadline for some 800,000 Afghans carrying Afghan Citizen Cards (ACC) issued by Pakistan authorities to leave the country, another phase in Islamabad’s campaign in recent years to repatriate Afghans.Families with their belongings in tow lined up at the key border crossings of Torkham in the north and Spin Boldak in the south, recalling similar scenes in 2023 when tens of thousands of Afghans fled deportation threats in Pakistan. “In the last 2 days, 8,025 undocumented & ACC holders returned via Torkham & Spin Boldak crossings,” the UN International Organization for Migration (IOM) said in a post on social media platform X on Monday.”IOM stands ready to scale up its response at key border points with forced returns expected to surge in the coming days,” it said.Taliban officials also said thousands of people had crossed the border, but at lower rates than the IOM reported.Refugee ministry spokesman Abdul Mutalib Haqqani told AFP that 6,000-7,000 Afghans had returned since the start of April, saying “more than a million Afghans might return”.”We are urging Pakistan authorities not to deport them (Afghans) forcefully — there should be a proper mechanism with an agreement between both countries, and they must be returned with dignity,” he said.- ‘An hour to leave’ -The UN says nearly three million Afghans live in Pakistan, many having lived there for decades after fleeing successive conflicts in their country and after the Taliban’s return to power in Kabul in 2021.”We were forced to return. Two days ago I was stopped and asked for documentation when they were searching houses,” 38-year-old Abdul Rahman told AFP after passing the Spin Boldak crossing with his family from Quetta, in Pakistan’s southwest, where they lived for six years. “They didn’t even gave me an hour (to leave), I sold a carpet and my phone to make some money to come here, all my other belongings we left behind,” he said. Human rights activists have been reporting for months the harassment and extortion of Afghans in Pakistan, a country mired in political and economic chaos. More than 1.3 million Afghans who hold Proof of Registration cards from the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, have also been told to move outside the capital Islamabad and the neighbouring city of Rawalpindi.Human Rights Watch has slammed “abusive tactics” used to pressure Afghans to return to their country, “where they risk persecution by the Taliban and face dire economic conditions”. Ties between the neighbouring countries have frayed since the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan.Islamabad has accused Kabul’s rulers of failing to root out militants sheltering on its soil, a charge that the Taliban government denies, as Pakistan has seen a sharp rise in violence in border regions with Afghanistan.