A Pakistan court blocked on Friday (September 18, 2026) an order by the country’s medical board for dozens of Afghans studying to be doctors to be expelled from colleges and universities and sent home.
“The Lahore High Court has extended the stay order preventing the expulsion of over a hundred Afghan medical students from medical colleges until the next hearing,” a Lahore court decision seen by AFP said.
Pakistan orders medical institutions to expel Afghan students, halt fresh admissions
The judge, Justice Khalid Ishaq, did not fix a date for the next hearing.
Earlier this month, the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) said in a letter to academic institutes that no “form of facilitation of Afghan nationals is permitted for the current academic session”.
The PMDC letter to college deans said: “Afghans previously enrolled in medical or dental programs in Pakistan are required to return to Afghanistan.”
The letter, a copy of which was seen by AFP, did not say on whose authority the medical council was acting, but said: “The matter is of highest priority and relates to national policy directions.”
Speaking after Friday’s (September 18, 2026) hearing, final-year Lahore student Mubin Ulfati told AFP: “We were predicting this, because in a view of human rights, education is our primary right, so we were 100% sure that this was going to happen.”
The 24-year-old, who had just returned from a hospital shift in July when he was given 24 hours to leave the country, added: “Everything is still in a desperate situation, and we don’t know what to do.”
A similar court petition has already been rejected by officials in Balochistan province, while another is under way in Sindh.
Relations between neighbours Pakistan and Afghanistan have plummeted since the Taliban government’s return to power in Kabul in 2021, and escalated into weeks of war earlier this year.
More than 2.5 million Afghans — many who spent decades living as refugees in Pakistan — have been expelled or left voluntarily over the past three years, according to UN data, as part of a deportation drive by Islamabad.
Human Rights Watch urged authorities to reverse the PMDC order, highlighting the plight of women who are banned from studying in Afghanistan.
Amnesty International slammed the move as “discriminatory and arbitrary”.
Among the Lahore petitioners was a 23-year-old who was just days away from finishing her second-year studies when she was told she must “go back and leave everything”.
A judge suspended the expulsion order at the provincial level on September 11, but the student said her records have already been expunged from the university’s online platform.
‘Never give up’
The undergraduate, who requested anonymity for security reasons, was forced to end her medical studies in Afghanistan after Taliban authorities banned women from universities.
She said she was one of about 20 Afghan women out of 30,000 applicants to win a scholarship in Pakistan.
“I will never give up… I learned from this journey that sadness doesn’t bring anything,” she told an AFP journalist in Kabul by phone.
Asad Jamal, one of several lawyers representing the students in Lahore, criticised the PMDC orders, which he said failed to provide medics with “any opportunity to be heard”.
The PMDC did not respond to AFP‘s request for comment.
Mr. Jamal said even if the students lose their Lahore petition, the case could still be taken to Pakistan’s Federal Constitutional Court.
Some Afghan medics had been deported even before the PMDC order, such as a fourth-year student who tried unsuccessfully for more than a year to renew his visa.
“We are only students. We are not political people,” said the medic, who was specialising in ophthalmology and requested anonymity.
The 33-year-old was pulled out of the operating theatre and expelled within two days.
“Please, let us finish our studies,” he said. “We will finish, and we will go back to our country.”
Published – September 18, 2026 10:59 pm IST
