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Taliban closes exit routes, crushing Afghan hopes

The Taliban have stopped thousands of Afghans from crossing their country’s southern border with Pakistan as they try to escape the misery at home. Zakariullah, seated on a dirt road in Spin Boldak, a trading town just a few hundred metres from Pakistan, says he has been turned back more than half a dozen times, sometimes violently. On Saturday, 25-year-old Zakariullah, the father of three, told AFP that they only accept people with papers from the area. ‘Since there are no jobs here, we need to cross the border,’ he said.

‘They tell people ‘It’s your country. You should not leave,’ said 25-year-old Rahmadin Wardak, who was also trying to flee. Taliban rulers say Afghans need to stay and rebuild their war-ravaged country. Those attempting to cross were also stopped by their Pakistani counterparts in Chaman. One Taliban border guard, Mullah Maulvi Haqyar, told AFP that between 8,000 and 9,000 people attempt to cross the border without proper documents every day.

According to Maulvi Noor Mohammad Saeed, the Taliban official for Kandahar province, ‘people and families are not to leave the country. By doing so, you lose respect for your Afghan culture’, he told AFP. In the narrow corridor topped with barbed wire that led to the next checkpoint, only day labourers and traders – young men wearing traditional pakol hats and sweating under the weight of their goods – were allowed through.

In the second corridor, mostly empty except for a few elderly men and women seeking healthcare in Pakistan. Afghans are eager to leave a country in the grip of economic collapse after the Islamists seized power in August. Jobs have vanished and farmers are reeling from drought impacts.

One third of the world’s population faces famine, according to the United Nations. Kakariullah, whose farmland is 600 kilometers in Kabul province, says he hopes to find work in Pakistan. His family would then follow him. The trip to Spin Boldak has emptied his meager savings, as has happened to many others at the border crossing. He left his home in Nangarhar because he had ‘no money, no food to feed my eight children’.

On Saturday’s visit by AFP, hundreds of people were begging the Taliban for permission to cross the border. As a crowd of people scrambled to get across the river to sell their possessions – and keep hunger at bay for a few more hours – guards wielding sticks and pipes tried to control the frenzied scene. In the years before the Covid pandemic and recent upheavals, the border was mostly open, with few restrictions for the tens of thousands who crossed daily.

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When the Taliban captured Spin Boldak early in their offensive, Pakistan shut the crossing and left huge crowds of stranded travelers on both sides. The crossing reopened when the hardline group ousted the US-backed government and assumed power in August. As more Afghans arrived, they feared the Taliban would return to their brutal rule of the 1990s. Sami Ul Haq, who monitors the crossing point for the UN refugee agency UNHCR, said that at first many people could cross.

In the last two weeks of August, there were few restrictions at the crossing, but then the Taliban and Pakistanis stepped in. On Thursday, the Taliban announced they were shutting the gates completely in protest against Pakistan — which has repeatedly said it will not accept Afghan refugees — accusing officials of creating obstacles for Afghans with the right papers. As of now, UNHCR has not reported large movements of people towards the borders.

Some Afghan refugees living in Pakistan have even returned home since the war ended. However, the agency last month said it was prepping contingency plans for up to 500,000 people rushing into neighboring countries by the end of the year. Bertrand Blanc, a UNHCR senior emergency officer in Islamabad, told AFP that any change inside the country might lead to mass displacement.

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