TORKHAM: Hundreds of families carrying bundles of belongings crowded the border post waiting to cross, on Friday, some hoping to convince officials to let them take live chickens with them.

“I consider myself Pakistani as I have never been back to Afghanistan, but now we are counting down the days in fear,” said Fazal Ahmed, a 40-year-old fruit vendor who came to Pakistan when he was four years old.

Afghans will only be allowed to cross the border with limited belongings and limited amount of cash, and they must leave their livestock behind.

“Our money is stuck here. All our lifetime earnings and savings are stranded here. We have established businesses here, but they don’t care,” said Karachi camp resident Khan Mohammad, pleading for authorities to give his countrymen more time to leave.

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More than 2,000 people are being processed each day, authorities have said, although most are labourers and traders who cross frequently back and forth.

About 60,000 Afghans have “voluntarily” left the country through the border in recent weeks, Feroz Jamal, a spokesman for the Khyber Pakhtun­khwa provincial government, told AFP.

Although the deadline to leave is still three days away, police have already begun raiding communities and detaining Afghans, with lawyers reporting indiscriminate arrests and extortion.

“Women at the border are facing a lot of problems, especially the pregnant women and people with disabilities, you can see they are waiting for their turn for hours,” Hakeem Ullah, a border official, told AFP.

Maroza Bibi and her children are among hundreds of Afghans waiting at the Pakistani border, hurriedly leaving a country she has called home for decades in fear of arrest.

“I am taking a lot of good memories. I was expecting Pakistan to give us nationality, but that did not happen, compelling us to go back almost empty-handed,” the 52-year-old told AFP at the Torkham crossing.

She says she was around 10 years old when her family fled the Soviet war in Afghanistan, settling in Kashmir, where she raised a family and where her husband is buried.

“To avoid any humiliation by the Pakistani authorities I have decided to leave,” Zulfiqar Khan, who was born to refugee parents in a sprawling Peshawar aid camp, told AFP at the border.

“I am leaving Pakistan with a heavy heart and a state of acute mental stress. I have no idea about life in Afghanistan, I know nothing about any possibility of re-starting my business there.”

Header image: Refugees arrive in Torkham to cross the border into Afghanistan, on October 27. — AFP

Published in Dawn, October 28th, 2023