The residents of Kabul complained about the existing challenges with the issuance of visas to Pakistan, saying that they are unable to receive their visas despite waiting for weeks and months.

Earlier, many Afghan refugees in Pakistan also voiced concerns about detention by Pakistan police.

The Kabul residents meanwhile claimed that Pakistani visas are sold at a high prices in black markets.

“We have patients. If we try to smuggle, we will be arrested. The people are facing detention via illegal paths, so we want them to give us visas. We applied for the visas, but after four months they were denied,” said Abdul Rasheed, a resident of Kabul.

“I applied for the visa two months ago. We received an invitation from Peshawar and brought a letter from the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, but they have yet to issue us a visa,” said Alozai, a resident of Kabul.

This comes as some of the travel agencies said that the lack of a Pakistan visa has affected their business.

“When someone applies for a visa, their application is denied. After that, they don’t want to try for the visa because we charge them 1,500 Afs at first, then the money is also wasted for them. So this affects our business as well,” said Nooryar, head of a travel agency.

“It used to take from five to ten days for the visas for patients to be issued but it now takes between 25 to 30 days,” said Fawad Farahmand, head of a travel agency.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) said that it has been in contact with the Pakistan embassy to solve the challenges in issuance of visas.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) always tries to bring facilities for the Afghans who want to travel to Pakistan or other countries, so that the Afghans can safely travel to other countries,” said Hafiz Zia Ahmad Takal, deputy spokesman for MoFA.

After the collapse of the republican government, many countries have stopped issuing visas to Afghanistan and only some of the countries including Iran and Pakistan continue to distribute visas to the Afghans.