Afghanistan-Pakistan border crossing reopens one week after fighting
Afghanistan: The main border crossing between Afghanistan and Pakistan reopened to pedestrians and vehicles yesterday, more than a week after it was closed following a gun battle between frontier guards.
There have been several border closures after clashes between Pakistan and Afghan forces since the Taliban returned to power in Kabul in 2021, but this one – lasting nine days – was one of the longest so far.
Ailing Afghans desperate to make hospital appointments in Pakistan were among the first to cross, pushed in homemade wheelchairs past checkpoints and luggage x-ray machines along roads and walkways between the frontier posts.
Shakoor Khan, 62, said he had been waiting for five days to take his daughter, who suffers from epilepsy, to hospital in Pakistan for treatment.
“These five days were like seeing her on death row,” he told AFP.
“I am sick ... I have a respiratory disease,” said another woman, Habiba, as she waited to cross into Pakistan.
Islamabad and Kabul were in diplomatic deadlock from Sept 6, when border guards opened fire at the crossing – halfway between the two capitals – in a dispute over the construction of an Afghan outpost.
Torkham is the busiest border post for trade and people between the two nations, which share a porous 2,600-kilometre frontier that cuts through rugged mountains and valleys.
Each side blamed the other for firing the first salvo last Wednesday, souring already poor relations between Islamabad and Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers.
The border – a colonial-era demarcation that every Afghan government has disputed – is a constant source of friction.
Pakistan has repeatedly complained that Afghanistan is failing to secure its frontier, allowing militants to cross and strike.
Afghan authorities have denied the allegations.