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KABUL: Tensions were high at the main border crossing between Afghanistan and Pakistan on Monday after forces from both sides exchanged gunfire overnight, reportedly killing at least one person.

The Torkham border crossing, located in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar and Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, has been closed since Feb. 21 after Islamabad shut it down over concerns of Kabul’s construction of a border post.

The shootout started on Sunday night at the border and continued until 11 a.m., Abdul Mateen Qani, spokesperson from the Afghan Ministry of Interior, told Afghan broadcaster Tolo News. 

The incident took place after the neighboring countries failed to reach an agreement to reopen the Torkham border crossing, leaving stranded thousands of trucks and vehicles carrying goods that include fruits and vegetables.

Qani said Pakistani forces were the first ones to shoot, and that the incident had killed at least one Taliban officer and injured two other people. 

“The situation has been tense since last night. We are worried more firing can happen after the clashes,” Abdul Rahim, a Nangarhar resident who lives near the border crossing, told Arab News by telephone.

Cross-border fire and shootouts have occurred along the Afghan-Pakistan border for years. In the past, each side has closed Torkham and the Chaman border crossing in southwestern Pakistan for various reasons. For landlocked Afghanistan, the two crossings are vital for both trade and travel.

Thousands of people, mainly Afghans, use the crossing daily to seek medical treatment and work in Pakistan’s border areas.

As tensions rise between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the continued closure of Torkham is creating more uncertainties for Afghans at the border.

Hassan Khan, an Afghan student who studies in Pakistan, has been stuck in Nangarhar after renewing his documents.

“We thought we would spend a day or two with our families and then go back to our studies in Pakistan. But this incident happened, and it’s been two weeks that we are now stuck on this side of the border crossing,” Khan told Arab News.

“We want the gate to reopen soon so we can go to our studies. Many patients and their families spent nights at the crossing hoping for the gate to open.”

Ahmad Zia Rahimzai, a political analyst and an editor at the Gaheez Writers and Journalists’ Association, said that the initial border closure was a way for Pakistan “to maintain its pressure on Afghanistan” and impose its demands.

“From time to time, it finds excuses and closes the routes between the two countries … paving the way for military clashes on the border,” Rahimzai told Arab News.

“Pakistan’s goal is to force the Afghan rulers to accept their demands through such pressures.”

LONDON: The eradication of polio as a global health threat may be delayed unless US funding cuts – potentially totaling hundreds of millions of dollars over several years – are reversed, a senior World Health Organization official has warned.
The WHO works with groups such as UNICEF and the Gates Foundation to end polio. The planned withdrawal of the United States from WHO has impacted efforts, including stopping collaboration with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Last week, UNICEF’s polio grant was terminated as the State Department cut 90 percent of USAID’s grants worldwide to align aid with President Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ policy.
In total, the partnership is missing $133 million from the US that was expected this year, said Hamid Jafari, director of the polio eradication program for the WHO’s Eastern Mediterranean region. The area includes two countries where a wild form of polio is spreading: Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“If the funding shortfall continues, it may potentially delay eradication, it may lead to more children getting paralyzed,” he said, adding that the longer it took to end polio, the more expensive it would be.
He said the partners were working out ways to cope with the funding shortage, which will largely impact personnel and surveillance, but hoped the US would return to funding the fight against polio.
“We are looking at other funding sources ... to sustain both the priority staff and priority activities,” he said.
He said vaccination campaigns in both Afghanistan and Pakistan would be protected.
UNICEF did not respond to requests for comment, and a spokesperson for the Gates Foundation reiterated that no foundation could fill the gap left by the US Saudi Arabia gave $500 million to polio eradication last week.
The partnership already faces a $2.4 billion shortfall to 2029, as it accepted last year that it would take longer, and cost more, to eradicate the disease than hoped.