From their hiding place in a desert ravine, under the cold air, the migrants could see the white lights of the Iranian border on the horizon. Many had spent their last savings on food and scraped together money from relatives in hopes of escaping Afghanistan’s economic meltdown. Now, looking at the border, they saw the lifeline: work, money, food.
“There is no other option for me. I can’t go back,” says Najaf Akhlaqi, 26, as “coyotes” scour the moonlit landscape for Taliban patrols. He jumps to his feet quickly when he hears the cries for the group to run away.
Since the United States withdrew its troops and the Taliban took power, Afghanistan has been plunged into an economic crisis that has pushed millions of people who were already struggling to survive to the limit. Income sources have disappeared, absolute famine has spread and foreign aid is unable to arrive due to sanctions imposed by the West on the leaders of the fundamentalist group.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said last month that more than half the population faced “extreme levels” of hunger. “Daily life for Afghans has turned into frozen hell.”
With no relief in sight for the foreseeable future, hundreds of thousands of people have already fled to neighboring countries. According to migration researchers, between October and the end of January, more than 1 million Afghans from the southwest of the country alone left via one of the two main migration routes to Iran. Humanitarian organizations estimate that between 4,000 and 5,000 people are entering Iran. each day.
Estimates are that Afghanistan has 38 million inhabitants.
Many choose to leave because of the immediate economic crisis, but the urgency to flee is compounded by the prospect of a long-term Taliban rule, which includes restrictions imposed on women and fear of reprisals.
“We’re seeing an exponential increase in the number of people leaving Afghanistan via this route, especially considering how arduous the journey is in the winter months,” says David Mansfield, a researcher who studies Afghan migration. He estimates that up to four times as many Afghans left the country for Pakistan and Iran per day last month compared to January last year.
The exodus scares many across the region and in Europe, where politicians fear a repeat of the 2015 migrant crisis. More than 1 million people, mostly Syrians, have sought asylum there, prompting a backlash. Many fear that a flood of Afghans will reach the European Union’s borders in the spring, when the temperature cools and crossing snowy routes becomes easier.
Last fall, determined to contain migrants in the region, the EU pledged more than $1 billion in humanitarian aid to Afghanistan and neighbors harboring Afghans who have left their country.
“We need new agreements and commitments to be able to assist an extremely vulnerable civilian population,” Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store said in a statement to the UN Security Council meeting last month. “We have to do everything possible to avoid another migration crisis and another source of instability in the region and beyond.”
But Western donors have yet to resolve thorny questions about how to meet their humanitarian obligations to ordinary Afghans without strengthening the new Taliban government.
In recent months, leaders of the group have appealed to Western officials to ease the squeeze on the Afghan economy, making promises about education for girls and meeting other conditions imposed by the international community. As the humanitarian situation worsens, the US announced sanctions exceptions and last month pledged an additional $308 million in assistance, bringing the country’s total aid total to $782 million since October.
But analysts say there are limits to what foreign aid can do in a collapsing country. Afghans who desperately need work will likely continue to look for it outside their country.
Crouching among the group in the desert, Akhlaqi braced himself for a desperate run: a mile of plowed-up earth trenches, a 15-foot-high wall topped with barbed wire, and an expansive area of ​​undergrowth teeming with grass. of Iranian security forces. He said he crossed the border 19 times in the last 30 days. Each time he was arrested and returned to the Afghan side.
A police officer under the previous government, Akhlaqi hid in the homes of relatives for fear of reprisals from the Taliban. When his meager savings dried up, he started going from town to town looking for a new job, but there wasn’t one available. So in November, he sought out “coyotes” in Nimruz province to go to Iran. “I’m afraid of the border guards, but here I can’t stay.”
Even before the Taliban took power, Afghans were already responsible for the second largest number of asylum seekers in Europe, behind Syria, and for one of the world’s largest contingents of refugees and asylum seekers – around 3 million people, most living in Iran and Pakistan.
Many escaped via Nimruz, a remote corner of southwest Afghanistan that has been a haven for “coyotes” and smugglers for decades. In its capital, Zaranj, Afghans from across the country crowd hotels on the main avenue and gather around kebab stalls, talking about the journey ahead.
Waiting in line to climb into a pickup truck, Abdul, 25, had arrived the day before from Kunduz, a commercial hub in northern Afghanistan that was devastated in last summer’s fighting during the Taliban’s lightning offensive.
After the group took power, people kept saving what little money they had, and Abdul’s shop was empty. He began to borrow money to feed his family, becoming more and more indebted. Finally, he decided that leaving was the only option. “I don’t want to leave my country, but I have no other choice,” he said, asking to be identified by name only, fearing reprisals. “There will be no future here.”
With the economic situation worsening, Taliban leaders have sought to profit from the exodus by regulating the lucrative business of human trafficking. An official sitting in a car collects a “tax” from every vehicle heading to Pakistan: 1,000 Afghanis (about $10).
The group was also taxing anyone who passed along the main migrant route escorted by “coyotes”, but after reports in September that a “coyote” had raped a girl, the Taliban changed tack and began clamping down on the way through the desert.
Transporting people every night requires delicate juggling. First the “coyote” makes a deal with a low-ranking Iranian border guard to allow a certain number of migrants to cross. Then an accomplice takes the migrants from the hotels to a desert hideout. When the sun sets, he and his associates drive for hours, scouring the area for Taliban patrols and, once the way is clear, taking migrants from hiding to the border.
Crossing the border is just the first hurdle that Afghans have to overcome. Since the Taliban’s rise to power, Pakistan and Iran have increased deportations, warning that their fragile economies will not be able to cope with an influx of migrants and refugees.
In the last five months of 2021, more than 500,000 migrants who entered these countries illegally were either deported or returned to Afghanistan voluntarily, likely fearing deportation, according to the International Organization for Migration.
Source: Folha
