"It's Your Country": Taliban Stops At Border Afghans Trying To Flee To Pak

"Every day, 8,000 to 9,000 people try to cross the border without having the necessary papers, and are turned back," a Taliban border guard said.

Thousands of Afghans trying to escape the misery at home have flocked to their country's southern border with Pakistan, but their attempts to get across have been stopped by the Taliban.

Zakariullah, sitting on a dirt road in the trading town of Spin Boldak only a few hundred metres from Pakistan, says he has been turned back more than half a dozen times, sometimes violently.

"They say only people from the area with papers," Zakariullah, a 25-year-old farmer and father of three, told AFP on the weekend.

"We want to cross the border to work there because there are no jobs here."