The Torkham dispute — and indeed all the controversies concerning the Pak-Afghan frontier — needs a permanent solution so that people’s lives are not upended by closures and violence every few months.

Pakistan ordered all documented Afghan migrants on Friday to leave the country by March 31 or risk deportation. The directive was issued a day after the Afghan Ministry of Refugee and Repatriation Affairs urged Pakistan to slow down the expulsion of Afghans.

A Pakistani official says residents have fled a border area with Afghanistan after forces from both sides clashed into the early hours of the morning.

As the key crossing stayed shut for the 16th consecutive day, trade activity and travel between the two countries via Torkham have come to a grinding halt. Due to the route closure, thousands of people, including patients, women, children and elderly men, have been stranded for the last two weeks.

An Taliban official says shelling from Pakistan has injured three Afghan journalists reporting on the closure of a key border crossing.

The closure of the Torkham border crossing between Afghanistan and Pakistan results in daily losses of 3 million dollars

Prior to the ceasefire, tensions have remained high in the Torkham area and its surroundings, with both sides having engaged in heavy gunfire and shelling. The border village of Bacha Mena on the Pakistani side was evacuated, with residents relocated to safer areas due to intense cross-border shelling.

The Torkham border was shut down on February 22 for all forms of movement following heightened tensions between the forces of Pakistan and Afghanistan over the Afghan construction of a bunker near Zero-Point.

In a major policy decision, Pakistan on Friday gave Afghan Citizen Card (ACC) holders a March 31 deadline to leave the country or face deportation. Reports were doing rounds that Pakistan was planning to evict all Afghans from the country but this was for the first time the Interior Ministry officially confirmed the development.

KHYBER: A tense calm prevailed on both sides of the Torkham border on Thursday despite an overnight a partial letup in artillery shelling. Local traders and transporters told Dawn that they were asked by the authorities to pull out all the stranded vehicles from the customs terminal.

Overnight clashes between Pakistani and Afghan security forces at the main border crossing between the countries caused thousands of people to flee their homes but the situation had calmed down by Tuesday morning,

Suicide Bombings in Pakistan amid Border Clashes with the Taliban | Vantage with Palki Sharma | N18G Pakistan saw two suicide bombings in two days. At least 13 civilians and 5 soldiers were killed during an attack on an army base in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.