Muhammad Ali, a youth in his 20s, said he dreamt of having a cryptocurrency business before the Taliban began to sweep through Afghanistan. This forced him into an unsettling journey west through Iran and Turkey, evading border guards and security searches as he went, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

The victory of the Taliban in Afghanistan has raised concern in Turkey. Though Afghanistan has ramped up security on its border with Iran, some Afghans are still getting through.

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Reuters reported that Ali, sheltered in a drainage tunnel outside the Tatvan district of Turkey’s eastern Bitlis province and said that he was waiting for transport west and wanted to go on to Europe. It also said that around 50 others were sheltering with him in the tunnel.

Ali said he had studied computer science and taught web and graphic design in Afghanistan. He said he had a YouTube channel where he posted videos on topics including how to make money online.

“I was planning a bitcoin or Ethereum mining business… Suddenly everything changed and the Taliban took over all of Afghanistan,” he said.

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“There is no internet. If there is no internet, I cannot do my job there. If we had smartphones that had a camera, the Taliban wouldn’t allow it,” Reuters reported Ali as saying.

Migrants who entered Turkey’s eastern province of Van, made their way by foot, bus or boat to the town of Tatvan on the western shores of Lake Van.

They also tried to evade police checkpoints, raids on their hideouts, and coast guard vessels that patrol the huge lake, where a boat carrying around 60 migrants sank last year, killing them all.

Wais Muhammad Shehrzad, a 30-year-old man from Afghanistan said that he left Afghanistan a month ago, paying $1,000 to traffickers and walking up to 50 hours at a time with little sustenance on the way.

In recent days, Turkish police have detained thousands of migrants from Afghanistan among an estimated 300,000 in the country. Those caught in Bitlis are sent to a repatriation centre in Van.