Aid agencies are sounding the alarm over the plight of Afghan refugees who’ve been forced to sleep in the open without proper food, shelter, sanitation and water after fleeing Pakistan to avoid arrest and deportation. An estimated 270,000 people have crossed the border after Pakistan’s government gave undocumented immigrants until the end of October to leave. Authorities have since gone door to door demanding immigration documents and have used bulldozers to raze homes in Afghan communities. Human Rights Watch warns the crackdown has led to detentions, beatings and extortion. This is 50-year-old Afghan immigrant Abdul Raheem.

Abdul Raheem: “These people are being very cruel to us. If they had given us four to five months more, we could have spent the winter here in comfort. Then, God willing, we would have gone back to our country.”