Customs suspends auction of stranded Afghan containers at Karachi port

Pakistan Customs has suspended the auction of containers belonging to Afghan traders that have been stranded at Karachi port, a senior customs official said, days after goods from hundreds of containers were opened up and shown to prospective buyers.

Irfan Javed, director general of transit trade at Pakistan Customs, told BBC Urdu that the sale had been halted at the request of the Pak-Afghan Joint Chamber of Commerce. "Containers held not only at Pakistani ports but also at the Torkham and Chaman border crossings are not being auctioned," he said.

According to BBC Pashto, whose report BBC Urdu carried, the port administration had put the contents of hundreds of stranded containers up for auction, and photographs released by the auction company showed container doors opened and goods displayed to buyers.

An Afghan trader, Mutiullah, confirmed to BBC Pashto that the sale of goods stuck at Karachi port began a few days ago, after trade and transit routes between Afghanistan and Pakistan were closed. He said the consignments were put up for auction after owners were informed and legal notices were issued, and that traders could still approach a court to stop the sale.

The containers had been accumulating heavy taxes and warehouse and parking charges, which many traders could not pay, leaving them unable to clear their goods.

Pakistan said at the start of this year that Afghan traders could move stranded cargo out of Karachi and other ports to its country of origin or to a third country. Afghanistan's Chamber of Commerce and Industries said at the time that about 15,000 containers belonging to Afghan traders were stuck at Pakistani ports. Officials of the joint chamber told the BBC in February that more than 60 percent of that cargo had been sent back to the countries it was imported from, and some moved to Iran's Chabahar and Bandar Abbas ports. It is not clear how many containers remain at Karachi port now.

Younus Momand, who heads the Afghanistan section at the World Economic Network and is a former official of the Chamber of Commerce and Investment, said the goods auctioned were part of the consignment Afghan traders could not move out of Karachi because of high taxes and storage costs. Afghan chamber officials have called the auction a breach of regional and international trade rules.

The Taliban government has repeatedly accused Pakistan of using trade and transit links for political ends; Pakistan says the routes were closed for security reasons. Figures from the Taliban administration's ministry of industry and commerce put two-way trade at 2.5 billion dollars in 2024, falling to 1.8 billion dollars in 2025, with all transit and trade routes shut so far this year.