Afghan Voice Agency (AVA)_Monitoring, This comes after a clash at the Spin-Boldak-Chaman crossing on Sunday left at least six Pakistani civilians and one IEA border guard dead.
The IEA said Pakistani forces had opened fire; however the Pakistani army said the IEA border forces had opened “unprovoked and indiscriminate fire of heavy weapons including artillery/mortar onto the civilian population”.
The crossing, which links Pakistan’s western Balochistan province with Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar province has been the scene of clashes in the past few weeks.
Sharif condemned Sunday’s incident and said on Twitter that “unprovoked shelling & fire by Afghan Border Forces at Chaman resulting in martyrdom of several Pakistani citizens & injuring more than a dozen is unfortunate & deserves the strongest condemnation.”
Reuters quoting Afghan security sources said the clash started after Pakistani forces demanded Afghan forces stop building a new check post on their side of the border.
Kandahar police spokesman Hafiz Saber said one IEA member was killed and 10 other people, including three civilians, were injured.
The busy Afghan border crossing at Chaman, used for trade and transit, was closed for some hours before reopening, officials on both sides said. The crossing was closed for several days last month after similar clashes.
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