KABUL (SW) – With more and more Afghans seeking to flee the country, commission agents for visa are said to be exploiting vulnerabilities of the desperate migrants.
With the fall of the previous government and the establishment of the Islamic Emirate, many citizens of the country are trying to seek refuge in other countries by any means possible. But, there are complaints that the agents facilitating the migration demand large sums of money for visa and ticket from the applicants.
Even as many Afghan citizens try to travel by land and air by paying large sums of money for visas and tickets to countries such as Iran and Pakistan, they complain about the high cost of visas and tickets provided to them by commission agents.
One of the Iranian visa applicants, who went to the Iranian embassy in Kabul, said that he could not get a visa from here because the agents had asked him for a lot of money.
The Iranian visa applicant, who did not want to be identified, told to Salam Watandar that he would go to Kandahar and obtain an Iranian visa from there. “Everyone is a ‘butcher’ here, they make people completely broke and they take all their money. A simple visas for air travel costs $ 400 to $ 500 and via land it costs $ 300.”
Meanwhile, Zahir Uddin, the head of a travel company in Kabul, also criticized the commission agents, saying that they had disrupted the legal work of travel companies and provided visas and tickets to applicants for large sums of money. According to him, the agents provide each visa for 50,000 to 60,000 afghanis.
“Ufortunately, everything has been ruined by the ‘black market’. For example, when we do all the work for a visa to an applicant, we book the ticket and the visa by contacting the company, but the black market people buys tickets at inflated rate, which disrupts everything and takes people’s money.”
He called on the officials of the Islamic Emirate to provide facilities for tourism companies and citizens and to prevent black market activities.
A commission agent told Salam Watandar that they provide urgent visas to citizens, and since such visas are issued in a very short time, they have to pay a lot of money in return. “The visa for for air travel to Iran or Pakistan costs up to 60,000 afghanis and via land it costs up to 40,000.”
on top of all this, ticket prices have also gone up drastically.
ENDS
