Officials in Pakistan say a unilateral construction effort has erected a robust fence along “more than 70%” of the country’s roughly 2,600-kilometer border with Afghanistan, and the coronavirus pandemic has not hampered the work.
Pakistan has reported a relatively low number of cases of COVID-19, with more than 21,500 infections and nearly 500 deaths.
The army-led, roughly $500 million project to secure the largely porous and historically open frontier was launched in 2017, and officials expect it to be finished by the end of this year or by summer 2021.
The fence has been installed along more than 85% of the border in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, and almost 70% percent in southwestern Baluchistan province, according to the information shared with VOA by the military’s media wing, the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR).
