Without work and food, hundreds flee to Pakistan and Iran daily

A main bus terminal in Kabul is nowadays crowded as many residents of the city try to find their way out of Afghanistan into some neighboring countries.

Bus drivers at the Paitakht Bus Terminal said many families were trying to leave Kabul each day, but many could not afford the bus fare to destinations near the border cities.

“There are many families traveling (out of here) these says days. Most of them travel from here to Mazar-i-Sharif, and then many of them cross the border to Iran from Mazar-i-Sharif,” said bus driver Sahil.

Underlining the economic pressures building on Afghanistan’s new Islamic Emirate government, prices for staples like flour, fuel and rice have risen and long queues are still forming outside banks as they strictly ration withdrawals.

Some humanitarian aid has started to arrive and limited trade has returned across land borders with Pakistan, but a severe cash shortage is crippling day-to-day economic activity and decades of war have left much infrastructure in tatters.

Foreign aid payments, which accounted for 40% of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product, have all but stopped as the West considers how to deal with the IEA that, until August, led an insurgency against the U.S.-backed government.

Abdullah, one Kabul resident hoping to leave, said: “We will leave for Pakistan or Iran because we don’t have work here. We work the whole day for a single bite of bread. What else can we do? We have brought these items at home and have brought them here to sell, since there is no money and no work.”

This comes amid a continuing economic crisis including a severe cash shortage in the heavily dollarized country.

With dollar shipments to Afghanistan having been stopped and with sanctions against the IEA in place, thousands of government employees have not been paid and work has dried up especially as banks have a strict weekly withdrawal limit.

Members of a Russia-led security bloc that includes some countries adjacent or close to Afghanistan meanwhile have no plans to host Afghan refugees, bloc member Kazakhstan said last week.

The Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) includes three Central Asian nations – Tajikistan, which has a lengthy border with Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan – as well as several more remote former Soviet republics.

At a heads-of-state meeting of the bloc in Tajikistan on Thursday, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev “supported the joint CSTO position that the placement of Afghan refugees or foreign military bases on our countries’ territories is unacceptable”, his office said in a statement.

Two more Central Asian nations, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, border Afghanistan but are not CSTO members. However, Uzbekistan has also said it would only allow short-term transit of refugees by planes to third countries.