Trade, pedestrian movement resumes at Chaman border

QUETTA:

Trade activities and pedestrian movement has resumed at the Pak-Afghan border at Balochistan’s Chaman after an unannounced ceasefire between the country's forces and the Taliban government in the neighbouring country.

The Friendship Gate located between the two countries remained open on Saturday morning.

A large number of people moved to the border for trade activities and other purposes.

“Border trade has resumed amid tight security,” a senior administration official told The Express Tribune on the phone

Pakistan has tightened security at the Chaman border to ensure uninterrupted traffic and pedestrian movement there.

"Frontier Corps personnel have also been deployed at the border,” the official added.

The Afghan side has also beefed up security on its side of the border.

Normalcy also returned to the villages in Chaman that witnessed rocket attacks by the Afghan Taliban a few days back.

Pakistani authorities said one person embraced martyrdom and 20 others, including women and children, were wounded when Afghan Taliban forces fired mortars on Thursday toward civilians near Chaman border.

Also read: Border tension flares again after ‘Kabul apology’

Security officials in Chaman blamed the Afghan Taliban for initiating the fire, saying they targeted Pakistani soldiers who were repairing a portion of the damaged border fence.

A few days earlier than that incident, seven Pakistani civilians embraced martyrdom in Chaman in another cross-border shelling by Taliban forces.

Pakistan had termed the Afghan Taliban attacks as unprovoked aggression.

The country has also lodged a protest with the Kabul government over the cross-border attacks.

"We have faced no obstacle at the border,” Muhammad Laal, an Afghan national, who entered Pakistan through the Friendship Gate, told The Express Tribune.

Laal was coming to Quetta along with his wife for medical treatment.

He said there were no better health facilities in Kandahar and that's why he was heading for Quetta for medical treatment.

In November, Pakistan closed the Chaman-Spin Boldak crossing for more than a week after similar clashes, stranding hundreds of truck convoys transporting Afghan commercial goods on both sides.

Later in the month, Pakistan’s embassy in Kabul came under gunfire days after Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar travelled to Kabul to meet her Afghan counterpart Amir Khan Muttaqi.

Landlocked Afghanistan relies on the crossing, along with the Torkham border terminal, to access Pakistani overland routes and seaports for international trade.

(With input from agencies)