The border was closed to all but those with valid travel documents after the US asked Pakistan to shut down the flow of supplies to the Taliban. But international agencies, including the UN High Commission for Refugees, have urged that Afghanistan's neighbors reopen their borders to those trying to flee.
`Humanitarian coalition'
The UNHCR last week called for a "humanitarian coalition" to share the burden and expense of looking after the refugees. Amnesty International, the London-based human rights organization, warned of an "unfolding humanitarian crisis" both inside Afghanistan and in those countries bordering it unless the international community steps in quickly with pledges to help.
Regional officials in Pakistan say they have devised a plan to build 100 new border camps to house one million additional Afghan refugees in the event of a US assault on Afghanistan.
At Chaman, authorities have spread barbed wire about 50km in either direction from the crossing point, to keep refugees from simply walking around the border post.
That isn't keeping refugees out of Pakistan -- at night, they cut through the barbed wire and slip across. But only the able-bodied and unencumbered can make their way through the desert terrain in the dark -- which is why most of those waiting in the no-man's land on the other side were women and children, the sick and the old. Refugees said they had no access to clean water, and the children in particular were suffering from diarrhea and other ailments.
Roadside graveyards
If they cross the border clandestinely, refugees must find a way across the Koujak Mountains, whose steep, bare slopes rise starkly from the desert floor.
Most then head for Quetta, the provincial capital -- only 150km away, but a three-hour drive on often-rough roads. The route passes by mud-brick settlements, apple orchards -- some of them killed by the area's four-year drought -- and forlorn roadside graveyards with Islamic prayer flags fluttering in the desert breeze.
Not everyone passing through Chaman, though, was trying to get into Pakistan. Striding back through the crossing toward the Afghanistan side on Saturday were hundreds of supporters of the Taliban.
"We are going back to Afghanistan to join in the jihad," or holy war, said Khan Ahata Norzei, a broken-toothed 20-year-old in a white turban. "I am fighting for Islam."
Arriving refugees said the Taliban had moved tanks into position around Kandahar and stepped up patrols by its fighters.
Norzei's companion, 25-year-old Taleb Seflal -- whose first name is the singular of Taliban, which means students or disciples -- had brought his family to safety in Pakistan a day earlier, and now was heading home to do battle with any American attackers who might come.
"I'm ready to sacrifice my blood for the defense of Afghanistan," he said.
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