By Daud Khattak
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
June 11, 2026

Patients who can’t get their cancer medicine. A couple who had to postpone their wedding indefinitely. Traders stuck at the border, paying fines for truckloads of spoiled goods.

Each day that the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan remains closed, the economic and humanitarian toll grows.

Haji Muawin’s health is deteriorating, and he can’t get to the help he needs. The 55-year-old Afghan cancer patient has run out of his prescription medication and needs an examination at a hospital in Pakistan to continue treatment.

“I visit the clinic every four months as I am in the last stages of my treatment, but the border closure has made my situation even more difficult,” Muawin, a resident of Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar Province, told RFE/RL.

Tensions between Kabul and Islamabad rose sharply in October 2025 when Pakistan carried out air strikes inside Afghanistan, ostensibly against militants belonging to Tehrik-e Taliban (also known as TTP, or the Pakistani Taliban). The Afghan Taliban retaliated by attacking Pakistani border posts, and the deadly clashes continued for several days.

The border has been closed ever since.

Muawin’s doctor is in Peshawar, a city in northwest Pakistan roughly 100 kilometers from Muawin’s hometown of Ghanikhel. To get there, he must cross the border at the Torkham crossing.

To avoid the tougher border restrictions at Torkham, Muawin says he twice made the 800-kilometer journey to Spin Boldak in Afghanistan’s Kandahar Province.

The Spin Boldak–Chaman border crossing has long been a preferred route for Afghans without valid visas. Travelers say offering bribes to border officials can, at times, facilitate passage. But Muawin had no such luck.

“Each time I was turned back despite greasing the palms of some border officials,” he said.

Even if he had managed to enter Pakistan, Muawin would have to travel another 850 kilometers to reach Peshawar.

Critically ill patients had often received special visas to cross into Pakistan for medical treatment. But the issuance of all visas to Afghan citizens has been suspended, leaving many patients without access to health care.

Neighbors Divided

Pakistan maintained cordial relations with the Afghan Taliban during the latter’s fight against US and NATO forces in the country. But since the Taliban seized Kabul in August 2021, relations between the two erstwhile allies have become increasingly strained.

Islamabad accuses the Afghan Taliban of sheltering TTP militants who are carrying out attacks inside Pakistan. The Taliban, meanwhile, maintains it would not allow Afghan soil to be used against any country.

Apart from inflicting losses worth millions of dollars on traders and businesses, the prolonged border closure has deeply affected the lives of people living on either side. The roughly 2,600-kilometer border, also known as the Durand Line, is home to mostly Pashtun communities that straddle the frontier.

For decades, the Pashtun tribes living along the border used to crisscross without passport or visa restrictions.

Azizullah, a member of the Shinwari tribe who lives in Pakistan, had to postpone his wedding till the border is reopened because his bride-to-be’s family lives on the Afghan side. Their families belong to the same tribe.

“The border was closed just days before their wedding was set to take place. The ceremony had to be postponed despite everything having been arranged,” Qudratullah Qudrat, a relative of Azizullah’s who lives in the Marko area of Afghanistan, told RFE/RL.

Cross-Border Trade At A Standstill

The border closure has also brought all trade and business activity to a standstill, rendering hundreds of thousands jobless ranging from day laborers to mechanics, retailers, vendors, cab drivers, truckers as well as businesspeople involved in large-scale imports and exports.

Said Wali, 42, a truck driver from Afghanistan’s Nangarhar Province, told RFE/RL that he suffered losses worth 1 million Pakistani rupees (roughly $3,500) when the border closed last year.

“I was transporting rice from Punjab (in Pakistan) to Afghanistan when they shut down the border. We remained stuck with loaded vehicles for nearly a month awaiting the reopening. It did not happen,” said Wali, who now transports goods domestically but for a fraction of his prior income.

“This isn’t the first time we have suffered such losses. Each time they have trouble, they close the border. This must end once and for all,” he said.

Qaseem Khan, a transporter from the Shinwari tribe in Nangahar, said the cross-border transportation was generating more returns than inside Afghanistan.

“We used to take coal and fruit, etc., to Pakistan and return with cement, rice, and potatoes. That was pretty profitable,” Qaseem told RFE/RL, adding that because most of the transporters returned to Afghanistan, there is now more supply than demand for their services.

Meanwhile, some businesses in Pakistan had been solely dependent on skilled Afghan workers.

Sher Zaman Mohmand, president of the All-Pakistan Beekeepers and Honey Traders Association in Peshawar, told RFE/RL that 60 percent of his employees were Afghans.

“We lost them because of the recent wave of Afghan deportations from Pakistan,” he said. “Now they are unable to return because of the border closure and Pakistan’s visa restrictions.”

Mohmand added that unlike other businesses, beekeeping was hit by a double blow.

“Without our skilled workers, many of the bees died, and honey production dropped. Secondly, our exports were affected by the border closure.”

Pakistan’s primary honey export markets are Gulf countries, but Mohmand says the sellers also often work with Afghan traders through unofficial channels.

“The Pakistan-Afghanistan tensions have brought our business to a complete standstill,” he said.

Once-Booming Trade ‘All Gone Now’

Pakistan and Afghanistan have five major border crossings — Torkham, Chaman-Spin Boldak, Ghulam Khan, Kharlachi, and Angoor Adda. Additionally, there are informal trade routes where locals cross with goods using various means of transportation.

Shahid Hussain, an official at the Chamber of Commerce in northwestern Pakistan, says the closure has caused “millions of rupees in losses on a daily basis” for Pakistani traders.

Daily losses for traders on both sides of the border were estimated at 1 billion rupees ($3.5 million) in the first month of the closure alone, he said.

Hussain added that Pakistani traders export cement, beef, poultry, medicine, and rice to Afghanistan and Central Asia while importing fruit, vegetables, coal, and earth minerals from Afghanistan.

Afghanistan is also dependent on Pakistan’s Arabia seaport of Karachi for its imports from the outside world. Those goods are then transported to Afghanistan via road links under the Pakistan-Afghanistan Transit Trade Agreement.

“I know many Afghan traders who have gone bankrupted because their imports got held up at Karachi,” Hussain said. “They faced steep penalties, and those items spoiled or were sent back.”

Hussain, who is also a businessman, has been exporting cement and rice to Afghanistan and beef to Uzbekistan via Afghanistan for the past 21 years. He used to employ 33 Afghans at offices in Kabul, Mazar, and Jalalabad. Now, each branch has just two employees.

“For every businessman, it’s the same story,” he added.

Khan Jan Alokozay, founder of the Pakistan-Afghanistan Joint Chamber of Commerce and Industry, says that before the border was closed, Afghanistan and Pakistan had monthly trade of $200 million.

With the recent tensions, “that is all gone now.”

Alokozay said Afghanistan used to export fruit, vegetables, coal, and precious stones worth $800 million a year. Half of Afghanistan’s imports from abroad arrived via the port in Karachi, he said.

He said both sides are seeking alternative trade routes without any reasonable success so far.

“This is an an issue of ego for the two sides now,” Alokozay said, speaking of the strained ties between Kabul and Islamabad. “They don’t care about the roughly 1 million people whose livelihoods either directly or indirectly depend on cross-border trade.”

“We businessmen and traders are the victims of their political issues.”

Copyright (c) 2026. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.