PESHAWAR, Aug 28: Afghan refugees smuggled into Pakistan in recent weeks said on Wednesday that smugglers were operating routinely in remote mountain border passes and bribing Afghan and Pakistani border guards along the way.

The smugglers were collecting up to Rs18,000 per trip, and spending half of it on bribes on both sides of the porous 2,450km-long border.

The smugglers were charging around Rs500 per person and bringing them into Pakistan on trucks, mules and camels.

While some 1.4 million Afghans have packed their bags in Pakistan and returned home since March, others are still trying to flee their war-ravaged homeland.

Pakistani border officials announced on Wednesday they had arrested 15 people caught illegally bringing Afghans over the border.

“These people were working as agents to smuggle Afghans illegally into Pakistan without valid travel documents,” a Pakistani immigration official said.

Razi Mola, an Afghan who was recently smuggled into Pakistan, said he was transported in six separate vehicles.

“I saw hundreds of Afghans coming to Pakistan through this way,” he told AFP.

Smugglers often hid their human cargo in wooden crates of fruit and cotton, he added.

“No one stopped us from Jalalabad to the Sarsobi hills near Torkham, or from Khajoori to Soor Dhand in Pakistani territory,” Saifur Rehman, another newly-smuggled refugee, said.

“We saw Afghans and Pakistani border security personnel at both sides but after bargaining with the agents they allowed us to go through.”

Mola said he was driven by fears of factional fighting and bombing raids by the US-led forces hunting for Al Qaeda and Taliban remnants.

“You cannot predict the situation in Afghanistan as sometimes the Americans will start bombing, or rival Afghan factions will start fighting,” he said.

“We are tired of war and we want peace.”

Another Afghan, who gave his name only as Miran, said he had paid smugglers to bring him from Jalalabad to Peshawar because there was no business in his hometown.

“I came back to earn some money for my family,” he said.

Mola and Miran said they were transported in pick-up trucks to the border, from where they walked through mountains to the Pakistani tribal area of Zakha Khel and hired more pick-up trucks to reach Bara.

“At all places we were helped by local Afghan and Pakistani agents,” Mola said, adding the journey took two days.

More than 16,000 army and paramilitary troops and local police were stationed along the 1,200km border in the NWFP alone to stop the entrance of illegal Afghans and “undesirable elements,” a border official said.

But he conceded that limited resources meant many were getting through.

“We are trying our best to stop the entrance of illegal Afghan refugees,” he told AFP by telephone from the border.

“But due to lack of facilities, funds and geographical disadvantages some of the refugees succeed in reaching Pakistan.”

An NWFP government official said 15 extra checkpoints had been established along the border this year to stop illegal Afghans and “undesirables” entering.

More then 3,000 illegal Afghans trying to enter Pakistan had been turned back in the past month, he added.—AFP