Tucked 150 kilometers west of Gwadar, the coastal hub at the core of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, Kuntani Hor sits as a quiet, muddy creek along Pakistan’s remote Makran Coast, just steps from the Iranian border. What looks like an unassuming stretch of water and arid surrounding land, however, has grown over decades into the beating heart of one of Pakistan’s most consequential informal cross-border economies: a sprawling smuggling network for Iranian fuel that sustains tens of thousands of livelihoods across the country.
This informal fuel trade, classified as smuggling by Pakistani authorities, had become so deeply embedded in local economic life that Balochistan’s provincial government took the unprecedented step in April 2025 of setting a regulated per-litre price for the black-market fuel, capping it below the cost of officially imported fuel and restricting sales to within provincial borders. When operations run at full capacity, Kuntani Hor’s shoreline buzzes with constant activity: boat crews bring Iranian petrol and diesel across the border, day laborers haul heavy 70-litre barrels through waist-deep mud to local depots, specialized motorcycle transporters known locally as cycali haul the load across sandy desert tracks, and truck drivers move the fuel onward to markets across Balochistan and beyond into Punjab. For workers ranging from recent university graduates to displaced fishermen to unskilled laborers from northern regions with no other work options, this high-risk trade is the only reliable source of income they can access.
That fragile livelihood came to a near-standstill in early 2026, after the United States and Israel launched a new full-scale military campaign against Iran on February 28, the second major open conflict between the parties following a 12-day confrontation in June 2025. Iran retaliated with strikes on Israeli and American military assets across the Gulf region, and fighting soon disrupted ports, coastal infrastructure, and shipping lanes around the Strait of Hormuz. By July, the conflict had killed thousands and displaced millions across Iran and Lebanon, but its economic ripple effect reached far beyond Iran’s borders, straight to the shores of Kuntani Hor.
For 26-year-old anthropology graduate Siraj, the collapse of the trade encapsulates the region’s deep systemic inequality. A native of Panjgur district near the Iranian border, Siraj traveled hundreds of kilometers to earn a degree from one of Pakistan’s top universities, Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, convinced the credential would secure him stable work. When formal government job openings drew thousands of applicants for every single position, and following the death of his father that left his family dependent on his income, Siraj had no other option but to travel south to Kuntani Hor in search of work. Just as he joined the local workforce, the war brought operations to a halt, leaving him unemployed and waiting back in his hometown for any sign the trade will resume.
Workers across the supply chain describe the trade as a deadly but necessary choice, made only by the absence of any viable alternative. “Every day was another chance to earn, but also another chance to die,” explained Mohammad Asif, an unskilled laborer from Dera Ghazi Khan in Punjab who returned home unemployed after the trade collapsed. Asif noted that laborers handle highly flammable fuel in extreme desert heat, with no protective gear, no fire suppression services, and no access to emergency medical care. A worker can earn up to 10,000 Pakistani rupees ($36) per day on a busy shift, nearly seven times the average 1,400-1,500 rupees daily wage for unskilled formal labor across Pakistan, making the risk unavoidable for many.
Conditions for the cycali, the motorcycle transporters who move fuel from the shore to inland depots, are equally deadly. Each motorcycle is loaded with four to five fuel barrels, creating an unstable, highly combustible load that riders must navigate across deep desert sand, often using their own feet to push and steady the overloaded bikes under the scorching sun. Noroz, a cycali who survived a fuel fire that left him with severe burns, noted that a single small leak can ignite the entire load, killing the rider instantly. “People lose their lives, but we still have to earn,” he said. “For us, it is better to risk death here than to die of hunger.” Even before the war, the creek lacked basic infrastructure: there is no clean drinking water, no sanitation, no shelter from the elements, and coastal waters are heavily contaminated by spilled fuel, forcing workers to buy all their water at prices that eat up nearly half their daily earnings.
Before the war, Bakshi Baloch, a depot operator from the coastal town of Pasni, estimated that more than 5,000 independent depots operated across the Kuntani Hor region, each supporting dozens of direct jobs from accountants to unloaders to transport crews. Workers traveled from across Pakistan to take jobs here: boat crews from neighboring Sindh, laborers from Punjab and even Kashmir, all drawn by the lack of work in their home regions. Today, Bakshi is back home himself, receiving daily voice messages from unemployed former workers asking when depots will reopen — a question he has no answer to.
Previous closures of Kuntani Hor, tied to regional security concerns and periodic crackdowns on smuggling, typically lasted only days or weeks. This disruption is different. Fuel supplies from Iran have become extremely unreliable, transportation costs have spiked, and profit margins have shrunk to almost nothing, leaving the trade operating at just a small fraction of its pre-war volume. By May 2026, dealers reported that the shortage had pushed the price of Iranian fuel in Gwadar up by 30 to 40 rupees (11 to 14 cents) per litre, hitting local consumers as well as traders. “It felt as though the war on Iran had also become a war on our economy,” said Rahim Baksh, a former fisherman who switched to fuel transport for better wages.
Regional analysts and journalists emphasize that the war did not create this crisis; it merely laid bare a decades-long failure of governance and economic development in Balochistan. A 2021 study of the Jiwani-Iran border found that informal cross-border trade, far from being a marginal activity, functions as the foundational pillar of the local regional economy. “While fuel receives the most attention, the border economy also revolves around food, household goods, construction materials, spare parts, and transport services,” explained Sahar Baloch, a Berlin-based journalist who reports extensively on Balochistan. She noted that thousands of families across Gwadar, Kech, Panjgur, and Washuk depend on the trade directly or indirectly, and traditional livelihoods like fishing and agriculture are already strained by overcommercialization and chronic water scarcity.
The Pakistani state has long classified the trade as smuggling, but has failed to create any alternative formal employment opportunities for the region’s growing workforce. For many families, the informal trade functions as a form of informal social safety net in the absence of state support, Sahar explained. Repeated closures and prolonged disruptions deepen existing economic frustration and widen the gap of distrust between marginalized Baloch communities and the national government, at a time when the province already struggles with soaring unemployment, high inflation, and falling purchasing power.
Today, only around 100 of the thousands of depots that once operated at Kuntani Hor remain open, and most workers have returned to their hometowns with no income and no prospects. For workers like Siraj, the war is not an abstract distant conflict covered in international news; it is experienced through empty depots, unanswered questions about work, rising prices, and lost wages. Even if the trade resumes, workers will only return to the same deadly conditions: contaminated water, unregulated flammable loads, no infrastructure, and a constant risk of death. At Kuntani Hor, the only thing more dangerous than doing the work is being deprived of it.
