Afghan smugglers climb the price, expand the network after the Taliban takeover

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LONDON: As a female prosecutor in Afghanistan, Said Shafiqa knew he had to escape his life when the Taliban seized power – what he did not realize was how much it would cost.
Smugglers exploit Afghan’s despair to leave the country, hiking prices after demand growing for their services and borders become more difficult to cross.

Afghanistan who had fled to Pakistan since the Taliban takeover on August 15 last year said members of the Pakistani security forces also blushed their milk for bribes and several landlords doubled or rented.

Everyone takes advantage of our fate to make money from us,” Sae said to the Thomson Reuters foundation from the capital of Pakistan, Islamabad.
The arrest of Taliban lightning from the country has encouraged the exodus of the Afghan masses to escape the persecution and poverty.

But the closure of the border by Pakistan, Iran and other neighboring countries, combined with difficulty getting a passport or visa, has encouraged many people to switch to smugglers.
Those who make a risky trip often take a tiring desert and mountain travel. Some tunnels under the border fence. Others use fake IDs.

Mixed migration center, which monitors smugglers, said the cost has soared during the Covid-19 pandemic because the sidewalk track made it more difficult to move, but the race to get out of Afghanistan since August sent prices soared.

SAE, 26, escaped from the capital, Kabul, with his mother and seven siblings on August 25 after a foreign rebel paid a $ 5,000 smuggler to remove it.

The prosecutor’s family is Hazaras, most of the Shiite minority targeted by the Taliban when they last ruled from 1996-2001.

Returning the Islamic group to power leaving SAE in fear of his life. He not only helped put the Taliban members behind bars, but he was active in protest against the group and was a vocal advocate for women’s rights.

Before leaving Kabul, Sae’s mother was equipped with a false cannula and intravenous drops.
Pakistan still allows Afghans to cross for emergency medical care without a visa, and the family hopes the border guards will have mercy.

The trick works, assisted by a few dollars that slips into the right person.
Once across the border, demands for bribes installed. Fourteen checkpoints later and they are more poor $ 300.

In Islamabad, Sae said their landlords billed them three times local fare. They also gave him $ 700 to pay the police for illegal for rent to Afghans without a visa.

People smugglers now collect Afghanistan an average of $ 140- $ 193 to reach Pakistan through the border city of Spin Boldak, up from $ 90 a year earlier, according to data from a Mixed Migration Center for Geneva.

The average cost for Iran through the Hub Smuggling Zaraj is $ 360 – $ 400, compared to around $ 250 before, he said.

Costs vary depending on the length and difficulties of routes, wealth and ethnic backgrounds of people who travel, whether they have contacts, and the number of people who demand bribes.

Some Afghans interviewed by the Thomson Reuters foundation quoted a much higher cost than those reflected in the data collected by the mixed migration center.

A woman said she recently quoted $ 1,000 for a trip to Islamabad with her two children.
Abdullah Mohammadadi, an expert at the Mixed Migration Center, a smuggler said is usually part of an established organized criminal tissue.

However, with Afghanistan hammered by the economic crisis and severe drought, farmers who were desperate for money to feed their families also became involved.

They know what they are doing wrong, but say they don’t have other choices,” said Mohammadi

Criminal networks benefit because they can use these people to expand their operations.”