TORKHAM, Afghanistan, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Standing in front of a damaged muddy shop and thinking about his future and the paths to revive his store, Zardad, 28, whispered with sorrow that the conflict has devoured in its flames everything he had in the shop -- the only source of his income.
A former refugee who returned to his homeland, Afghanistan, a couple of years ago, Zardad established a shop at the Torkham crossing point to sell vehicle spare parts. He said the foreign invasions and civil unrest had forced his family to migrate decades ago, and the recent conflict between Afghanistan and Pakistan destroyed his shop.
Once a hustle-bustle border town connecting Afghanistan to neighboring Pakistan, Torkham has remained closed over the past five months in the wake of clashes along the border.
"The outcome of war is nothing more than the displacement of people. Civilians are the victims of war," observed Zar Gul Etmanzai, head of the Shopkeepers Union in Torkham.
Scores of shops and properties worth about 300 million afghani (around 4.8 million U.S. dollars) have been damaged in the three markets of the border town, according to Etmanzai, a former refugee who resettled in Afghanistan recently.
More than six million Afghans reportedly live in neighboring Pakistan and Iran. The number of returnees has been on the rise amid growing tensions in the Middle East, with thousands of refugees returning to Afghanistan every day. Yet they soon found that their home country is far from a haven.
At least one individual has been killed and seven others sustained injuries due to a mortar shell that slammed into Omari camp -- a temporary shelter place in Torkham that accommodates Afghan returnees from Pakistan, according to Qurishi Badlon, the Nangarhar provincial director of Information and Culture.
Calling for friendship among nations, tribal elder and former refugee Hajji Agha Jan stressed that the clashes along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border have caused loss of lives and property damages in Torkham, as many people have been displaced and several shops were destroyed.
"We are fed up with war. We want the two governments to stop the war and protect the civilians," Jan told Xinhua. ■