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- Afghans are paying $90 to be smuggled across the Pakistani border, the Wall Street Journal reported.
- Many trying to get to the closest city after they cross are facing jacked-up taxi fares.
- Afghanistan's neighbors shut their land borders and local airports are still closed.
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Local Afghans estimate that thousands of people have been smuggled across the border to Pakistan, often paying $90 a person and facing jacked-up taxi fares on the other side, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
Afghans are also paying hundreds of dollars for taxis within the country just to reach the border crossing at Chaman, the report said, only to then face surging fares to get to the nearest Pakistani city of Quetta.
Afghanistan's neighbors closed their land borders and local airports remain closed, the report said. Many people are trying to flee despite an end to the western evacuations, fearful of the new Taliban rule.
The Taliban said Afghans with valid passports and visas would be allowed to leave the country, but passport offices are closed, the report said.
Afghanistan and Pakistan share a 1,640-mile border, which has been the scene of chaotic crowds since the fall of Kabul. In the following weeks, border crossings have closed and reopened – and are now closed again, the Journal reported.
The UN estimates that Pakistan is already hosting 1.4 million registered Afghan refugees, though Pakistani officials believe the true number is over double that figure.
"We are the country that has the greatest number of Afghan refugees right now. It is very clear that we would not like to have more," Asim Ahmad, spokesman for Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told the Journal.
Since May, the UN migration agency has reported a 40% increase in Afghans crossing over to Pakistan, The Guardian reported last week.