Chaos on the Afghanistan border | Thousands of people huddle on the passage to Pakistan

by time news

Pakistan reopened its border with Afghanistan for the first time since the Taliban seized power, and the result was chaos. Thousands of people crowd the Turkham border crossing trying to flee. “It is like doomsday, there are thousands of people, most of them waiting on the Afghan side in crowded lines and all are trying to approach the door to enter Pakistan,” Ziarat Gul, a worker at the crossing, told the Efe news agency. . Gul assured that stampedes take place every few minutes and that women, children and the sick are the “most affected”, being crushed by the crowd as they try to advance without water or food and, sometimes, losing part of their belongings along the way. .

“Everyone is pushing towards the door, children and women are crying and the situation is not good,” as “only a few are lucky and cross the border into Pakistan in a single day,” he added. Whether for medical treatment, study topics, family visits or fleeing Afghanistan due to threats from the Taliban, thousands of people wait for days to reach the gates of the border post amid chaos and despair. “We arrived at Turkham early Friday morning around four. We waited in the crowd until we entered Pakistan “36 hours later, said Sayeeda Irfan, a woman trying to cross with her two children and her husband.

Irfan said that at least five children were killed in the stampedes at that time, adding that his three-year-old daughter was saved from being crushed to death thanks to the Taliban rushing to put order in the ranks to avoid crowds. “Spogmai (his daughter ) was unconscious for a few minutes. Now he is fine, although sometimes he cries. We will see if he has any internal injuries once we get to Peshawar, “a city in northern Pakistan, he noted. The Taliban try to keep calm in the desperate crowd by whipping people with sticks, cables and weapons, while the authorities at the crossing let only those with official documents, passports or Pakistani visa through.

But even so, crowds remain crowded in Turkham, sometimes forcing the gate to be temporarily closed in the face of chaos and despair, said a spokesman for the governor’s office in Nangarhar, the Afghan province where this border crossing is located. Only trucks with supplies could cross through Turkham until Thursday, since it is one of the main connection points between the two countries along with Spin-Boldak, in the southern state of Kandahar, which is still closed. The situation in the area has forced some to return to their homes since this weekend, tired after more than three days waiting at the border, since they have not been able to stay in a nearby hotel either due to the number of people who they have displaced to Turkham. Most Afghans who want to cross the border flee Afghanistan as a result of the Taliban seizure of power on 15 August.

“Some people want to live in Pakistan and others are on evacuation lists or are trying to travel to western countries,” said an official at the crossing who requested anonymity. This is the case of Abdul Nasir, who first tried to flee the country on an evacuation flight, but the scenes of chaos that occurred in those days prevented him from accessing the Kabul airport, despite having all the documents. Now Nasir and his family are trying to cross the border crossing to travel to Canada from Pakistan. “To be honest, Afghanistan is no longer a place for people like me. I want my children to be able to go freely to school, for my family to move freely around the city, and I want to live my life my way; these are the things that they are almost impossible under the Taliban government, “he lamented.

It is estimated that more than 120,000 Afghans fled Afghanistan last August in a chaotic evacuation process after the Taliban seized power after a lightning offensive prompted by the announcement of the official withdrawal of foreign troops on May 1. But there are still tens of thousands of people trapped in Afghanistan and they have all the legal travel documents; Faced with the impossibility of fleeing by air, with no flights operating from most Afghan airports, the reopening of Turkham is seen as the only hope for many of starting a new one outside the Taliban regime.

Economic plan

The Taliban government launched an aid program that consists of giving wheat in exchange for work to tens of thousands of men to combat hunger throughout the country. This initiative, which plans to employ 40,000 men in Kabul, will also be carried out in other cities, said Executive spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid at a press conference in Kabul. “This is an important step in the fight against unemployment,” Mujahid said, adding that the participants will have to “work hard.”

The program will last two months, with 11,600 tons of wheat to be distributed in the capital and 55,000 in other important cities in the country such as Herat, Jalalabad or Kandahar. In August, the UN World Food Program warned of a looming humanitarian crisis in the Asian country, where fourteen million people face severe hunger. Unemployment in Afghanistan is around 30 percent, according to World Bank data. Last month, a conference of donor countries and organizations convened by the UN in Geneva pledged $ 1.2 billion in aid to Afghanistan. The United States, which spent more than $ 2.3 trillion in its twenty years of intervention in Afghanistan, only offered $ 64 million in assistance.

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