New Taliban rulers insist Afghans need to stay and rebuild their conflict-ravaged country
\n Kabul
\nThousands of Afghans trying to escape the misery at home have flocked to their country\u2019s southern border with Pakistan, but their attempts to get across have been stopped by the Taliban.
\nZakariullah, sitting on a dirt road in the trading town of Spin Boldak only a few hundred metres from Pakistan, says he has been turned back more than half a dozen times, sometimes violently.
\n\u201cThey say only people from the area with papers,\u201d Zakariullah, a 25-year-old farmer and father of three, told AFP on the weekend.
\n\u201cWe want to cross the border to work there because there are no jobs here.\u201d
\nThe new Taliban rulers insist Afghans need to stay and rebuild their conflict-ravaged country.
\n\u201cThey tell people \u2018It\u2019s your country. You should not leave\u2019,\u201d said 25-year-old Rahmadin Wardak, who was also trying to flee.
\nOn the other side, their Pakistani counterparts in Chaman were also stopping those attempting to cross.
\n\u201cEvery day, 8,000 to 9,000 people try to cross the border without having the necessary papers, and are turned back,\u201d one Taliban border guard, Mullah Maulvi Haqyar, told AFP.
\nMaulvi Noor Mohammad Saeed, a Taliban official in Kandahar province, confirmed the authorities were asking \u201cpeople and families to not leave the country\u201d.
\n\u201cDoing that, you lose respect for your Afghan culture,\u201d he told AFP.
\nAt the border, only day labourers and traders — all young men wearing traditional flat pakol hats and sweating under the weight of their goods — were allowed to cram into a narrow corridor topped with barbed wire that led to the next checkpoint.
\nA second corridor for other travellers lay mostly empty, with a few exceptions including elderly men and women loaded onto wheelbarrows seeking urgent healthcare in Pakistan.
\nBut scores of Afghans are eager to leave a country on the verge of economic collapse since the militants seized power in mid-August and foreign aid money dried up.
\nJobs have vanished while farmers are struggling with the impact of a drought.
\nThe United Nations has warned a third of the population is facing the threat of famine.
\nZakariullah, whose farmland was 600 kilometres in Kabul province, said he now hoped to find work in Pakistan. He would then send for his wife and children to join him.
\nBut, like many others at the border crossing, the journey to Spin Boldak has stripped away his meagre savings.
\nMohammed Arif said he left his home in Nangarhar in the east because he had \u201cno money, no food to feed my eight children\u201d.
\nCommotion erupted outside the border office as hundreds pleaded with the Taliban to let them through, during a visit by AFP on the weekend.
\nGuards wielding sticks and pipes tried to control the frenzied scene as a crush of people pushed to get across to sell their possessions — and keep hunger at bay for a few more hours.
\nNone of them made it.
\nBefore the Covid pandemic and recent upheavals, the border was mostly open, with few restrictions for the tens of thousands who crossed daily.
\nBut when the Taliban seized Spin Boldak early on in their dizzying offensive, Pakistan shut the gates and left huge crowds of stranded travellers to amass on both sides. The crossing reopened when the hardline group ousted the US-backed government and assumed power in mid-August. More Afghans arrived, fearing the Taliban would return to their brutal rule in the 1990s.
\n\u201cAt first, lots of people could cross,\u201d said Sami Ul Haq, who monitors the crossing point for the UN refugee agency UNHCR. \u201cBefore we had up to 24,000 people coming a day.\u201d There were few restrictions at the crossing during the last two weeks of August, but then the Taliban and Pakistanis clamped down.
\nThe UNHCR has meanwhile not reported huge movements of people towards the borders.
\nWith the war over, some Afghan refugees living in Pakistan have even returned.
\nBut the agency last month said it was preparing contingency plans for up to 500,000 rushing into neighbouring countries by the end of the year.
\n\u201cWe need to prepare in case any change inside the country could trigger a massive displacement,\u201d Bertrand Blanc, a UNHCR senior emergency officer, told AFP in Islamabad.
\n\u201cFor the moment, we are in a wait and see situation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New Taliban rulers insist Afghans need to stay and rebuild their conflict-ravaged country Kabul Thousands of Afghans trying to escape the misery at home have flocked to their country\u2019s southern border with Pakistan, but their attempts to get across have been stopped by the Taliban. Zakariullah, sitting on a dirt road in the trading town […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-218758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n