Lugging suitcases across the border after packing up in Pakistan, Afghans are returning home with their worldly possessions but often lack one key item to restart their lives: an identity card.

On the Afghan side of the Torkham border crossing, children and adults wheeled their luggage or carried belongings atop their heads, as they moved from desk to desk to log their arrival.

“I don’t know how and where to get the ID card; now I’ll go and check,” said 17-year-old Abdulrehman Sudais, standing beside a crate of chickens he had carried across the border for his mother.

The Pakistan-born teenager had been to Afghanistan just once before, but his cousin had already told him he would need ID to access work or education.

Out of 6.1 million Afghan returnees who have arrived from Pakistan and Iran since September 2023, more than 86 percent are listed as undocumented by the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

At the crossing point, which still bears the shrapnel marks of this year’s war between the neighbouring countries, officials and aid workers were taking down everyone’s details.

While border officials contact authorities nationwide to verify the identity of those who don’t have any form of ID, the process for newly arrived Afghans can be bewildering.

Sardar Khan, 41, was sitting in a large tent at Omari camp near the crossing, where people get a return certificate and are fingerprinted.

“We are blind; we don’t know what to do,” he told AFP, as his son fell asleep at his side. “We’ve never been to Afghanistan before; we’ll get to know the importance of ID cards,” he said.

As well as a requirement for getting a job or school place, an ID card is essential for Afghans trying to prove they own land or a home, claiming inheritance, accessing state benefits, and travelling through the myriad of checkpoints across the country.