JALALABAD: After three months, some Pakistani university students who were stuck in Afghanistan due to deadly clashes between the neighboring countries were “permitted to go back home,” Afghan border police said Monday.

“The students from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (northwest Pakistan) who were stuck on this side of the border, only they were permitted to cross and go to their homes,” said Abdullah Farooqi, Afghan border police spokesman.

The border has “not reopened” for other people, he said.

The land border has been shut since October 12, leaving many people with no affordable option of making it home.

“I am happy with the steps the Afghan government has taken to open the road for us, so that my friends and I will be able to return to our homes” during the winter break, Anees Afridi, a Pakistani medical student in eastern Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province, told AFP.

However, worries remain for the hundreds of students about returning to Afghanistan after the break ends.

“If the road is still closed from that side (Pakistan), we will be forced to return to Afghanistan for our studies by air.”

Flights are prohibitively expensive for most, and smuggling routes also come at great risk.

Anees hopes that by the time they return for their studies “the road will be open on both sides through talks between the two governments.”