Pakistani soldiers check travel documents of Afghan nationals as they gather at the Pakistan-Afghanistan border crossing point in Chaman (AP).
KARACHI: Pakistani human traffickers operating in areas bordering Afghanistan are laundering money as thousands of Afghans try to sneak out of their country after Kabul fell into the hands of the Taliban.
Thousands of Afghans are fleeing Afghanistan to escape the new Taliban regime and seeking asylum in various countries, including the US and several European countries, in search of better living conditions.
“Business is booming even before the Taliban entered Kabul. We have smuggled around 1,000 people across the border since last week and business is booming.
He was reluctant to reveal how much they charge for smuggling Afghans into Pakistan, but Hameed was willing to speak to this correspondent, but he also confirmed that others like him work from border towns. Was doing.
He said, “These people are afraid of what will happen under Taliban rule and want to get out of Afghanistan by all possible means and are ready to pay whatever they ask for and also smuggled into Pakistan. She goes.”
He said human traffickers operate covertly from the border areas and use their own transport to smuggle Afghans into Pakistan.
A source familiar with the human trafficking racket said they mostly operate from border areas like Chaman, Chaghi and Badani in the restive Balochistan province.
The source said that most of the informal refugees move to Quetta or other Pakistani cities after being safe in Pakistan and some of them already have relatives working in Karachi or Quetta who are there to support them.
Dr Shah Muhammad Mary, who runs a literary magazine from Quetta, said Afghans have been smuggled even before the Taliban came to power.
“This influx of people from Afghanistan has been going on since before the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul,” he said.
“I think this year alone, about 55,000 Afghans have entered Pakistan through Balochistan, mostly children and women, because they want to flee wars and conflicts there,” he said.
Mary said that most of the Afghans who entered Pakistan through Balochistan are from ethnic Hazara Shia Muslim community or Tajiks.
An officer, who works with the Sindh Police Counter Terrorism Department and wished not to be named, said they were aware of a large number of Afghans entering Karachi over the past few days after realizing they were from Afghanistan.
“These are informal refugees who are smuggled into Pakistan from Balochistan and mix very quickly with the Afghan population on the outskirts of Karachi,” he said.
For the past several years a proper Afghan village has existed near the national highway connecting Karachi to the rest of Pakistan, while there are other smaller Afghan settlements near Sohrab Goth from where the highway begins to exit Karachi.
Taj Wali, an Afghan textile merchant who has been living in Karachi for the past 25 years and is now legally registered as a citizen of Pakistan, said he is not surprised at the influx of his countrymen as they just want security and peace. are the ones that are missing. Since the Russian invasion of Afghanistan.
“Like many other refugees around the world, they want to live a normal, peaceful life,” he said.
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