Feature: Jobless Afghans leaving country to escape poverty

"The poverty and idleness have left me no choice but to leave the country and find a job abroad to support my family in Afghanistan," Najibullah, 29, told Xinhua recently.

Waiting in a queue behind the gate of the Iranian Embassy here to apply for a visa, Najibullah, who like many Afghans, goes by one name, said that he had looked for a job in his home province of Kunduz over the past three years, but all in vain.

"My first destination is Iran, if fortune sides with me in finding a job with a reasonable income I would stay there, otherwise I would move to Europe," the job-seeking Afghan said.

Although there are no official statistics about the number of jobless people in Afghanistan and the rate of unemployment in the conflict-ridden country, Basir Noori, a spokesman for the National Union of Afghanistan Workers, in talks with Xinhua said that 60 percent of 12 million eligible workers of Afghanistan's population of 30 million people are suffering from unemployment.

Around the city squares in Kabul and other Afghan cities can clearly be seen the rising tide of joblessness, with scores of people just hanging around hoping to get hired.

The poverty and challenge of unemployment can be gauged from such scenes as whenever a person needs a worker, dozens of jobless people surround him and offer to work for a cheaper price than the next man.

Like Najibullah, scores of youth and elderly people are almost daily visiting the Iranian and Pakistani embassies to apply for visas to exit their country in hope of finding a lucrative job and peaceful life elsewhere.

"I come from central Daikundi province and I want to go to Iran for work," Ghulam Hussain, 32, told Xinhua.

"Daikundi is a very poor province, we don't even have asphalted roads to take our products to the markets," Hussain who is a mason by profession said, adding even there is no asphalted road to connect Daikundi to Kabul.

"Earning a little money is better than nothing," Hussain whispered,adding that like millions of Afghans who have been living in Iran and Pakistan over the past several years with their own income, he was sure he could find a job there to support his family in Afghanistan.

More than four million registered and unregistered Afghans are still living in Afghanistan's neighboring states of Iran and Pakistan,although more than 5.7 million Afghan refugees have returned home since 2002.

Protracted instability and conflicts have added to economic instability and unemployment in Afghanistan where 36 percent of people are living under poverty line.

"I am leaving my country because of poverty and unemployment and not because of war. Daikundi is a peaceful province and there is no Taliban to create law and order problems," Hussain said, adding, "I am an economic migrant."

Scores of Afghans have lost their lives on their way abroad in hope of finding a better life.

More than two dozen Afghans in the hope of reaching Europe lost their lives when their ferry sunk in Turkish waters in October 2014.

Just a couple of weeks ago, eight Afghans who were attempting to sneak into Iran illegally, according to media reports, were killed by smugglers. And several Afghan nationals were among 14 migrants who perished in a rail accident in Macedonia in late April.

"I am aware of the risk, I have no choice here at home but to leave the country to find a job and help myself and my family to survive.I also want my children to study," another Iran visa seeker Karimullah told Xinhua.

"I won't leave Afghanistan if I earn at least 10,000 afghani ( 170 U.S.dollars) here monthly," the would-be economic migrant said. Endi