KHYBER: Afghan and Pakistani transporters have complained they’re suffering huge financial losses due to political tensions between their countries and repeated suspension of bilateral trade.

They told Dawn on Monday that over 1,000 vehicles with and without goods had got stranded on both sides of the border since Jan 13 when Pakistan denied entry to Afghan drivers without valid travel documents.

“Around 90 per cent of Afghan drivers are either without passports or had their old passports expired with none of them having valid Pakistan visa on their passports,” Afghan driver Kher Mohammad told Dawn.

A resident of Afghan city Jalalabad, he brought a cotton consignment from Afghanistan to Pakistan on Jan 1 but couldn’t return due to the imposition of visa restriction.

They say visa curbs should be relaxed for at least one year

Impatiently waiting in Landi Kotal in his trailer loaded with aid consignment of wheat flour, he said all Afghan drivers had a trying time since Jan 13 because they were short of money, had lodging problems with their vehicles parked on the roadside, and lacked proper toilets.

“The irony is that Afghan authorities are taking a long time to either issue us new passports or renew old ones. We are also struggling to get Pakistani visas on time,” he told Dawn.

He said with immediate resumption of trade via Torkham not in sight, he was more concerned about payments to the man who he bought his vehicle from on installments.

Afghan driver Sher Rehman Utmanzai of Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province is also worried for getting stuck in Landi Kotal since the abrupt suspension of Pak-Afghan trade via Torkham border crossing.

Looking after a family of 18 people, he said that it was extremely difficult for him and his assistant to “make both ends meet.”

“To be very honest, we have cut down our daily meals by almost half as we cannot afford to pay for three meals a day,” he said, sharing his financial woes of the last 10 days.

The driver also said that he had lost contact with his family in Afghanistan and was very concerned about their wellbeing as they, too, had lost a major source of immediate earnings due to trade suspension.

Sher Rehman had dry corns loaded on his trailer with a fare of Rs180,000 per trip from Peshawar to Jalalabad.

“We have consumed half of our fare during the 10 days long agonising wait for trade resumption, which is nowhere in sight,” he said.

Ikramullah, a 30-year-old resident of Kunar province in Afghanistan, told Dawn that besides suffering financial losses due to trade suspension, he, along with other Pakistani and Afghan drivers, were forced to spend sleepless nights to keep a constant watch on their loaded vehicles.

He complained that the intense cold was taking a toll on the health of drivers as they had to stay close to theirvehicles without properbeddings and little or no hotwater.

”We feel as if we are imprisoned inthe open with very scarce resources and exposed to many difficulties whilewaiting for good news every nowand then,” he added.

Akhtar Mohammad, a young driver from Khyber tribal district, insisted that the trade between Pakistan and Afghanistan shouldn’t become a victim of bilateral political or security tensions.

He said that over 300 vehicles, mostly owned by Pakistani transporters and loaded with onion, cotton, coal and soapstone, were stranded on the Afghan side of the border as the Afghan Taliban had refused to allow them to cross the border in retaliation to Pakistan’s ban on Afghan transporters without valid travel papers.

The Afghan driver urged both Islamabad and Kabul to “have mercy” on transporters by opening the border crossing for trade and showing leniency in their cross-border movement by relaxing visa restrictions for at least one year.

He called for free trade between Pakistan and Afghanistan and separation of politics from bilateral commerce and trade saying this move will ensure economic stability of both countries with traders and transporters benefiting the most from it.

Published in Dawn, January 23rd, 2024