Life-Changing Evacuation from Kabul

On August 2021 the flame of the war between the Afghan army and the Taliban grew stronger. Daily a province fell under Taliban control. I fled my province, Laghman, when Kabul was the only city yet not under Taliban control. I thought it was the only safe place to be.

After weeks of sleepless nights, I awakened to a text from Shabana, founder of my high school, the School of Leadership Afghanistan (SOLA).

“Send me a picture of your passport and come to the airport at 9am. We are leaving the country,” said Shabana, and warning me not to carry any bag or luggage when I come to the airport. “Take your passport only,” she said in the text.

Without even caring where we were going, I sent the passport to Shabana and asked my little brother, Olfat, to accompany me to the airport.

All the gates, the main roads and the perimeter of the airport are filled with people — boys, girls, young and old, children, mothers and families. Some boys are trying to climb the high walls of the airport trying to enter into an area of safety and hope. Every minute a truck full of Taliban fighters drive by shooting into the air with the long black Kalashnikovs. The Taliban also carry long ropes and sticks with which they hit people.

The harsh sound each bullet tore my ear. My heart pounds hard and my hands shake. A stray bullet could hit me and end my life. I close my eyes and squeeze Olfat`s hand harder with each bullet.

We push towards the crowd and make our way to the main gate. There are several Taliban with scary faces, long beards; wearing black sorma in their eyes; their baggy trousers and big long turbans — they look nothing like average humans. They look dirty as they never showered. They have big guns strapped their shoulders.

A Taliban fighter sits on the roof of a guard room.

Olfat looks up and calls to him, “ Qari Saib, she is a syasar, let her in, please” he begs him.

I hate when Olfat addresses them as Qari sahib, a reference to religious scholars, because they are by no means religious scholars. They are murderers of thousands of children, mothers, fathers and families. Each day they massacred hundreds of innocent people, our relatives, neighbors, families and friends. My brother knows this, but he has to beg as we are desperate.

I also hate that Olfat addresses me as Syasar. Syasar means a person who is fully dependent on someone else and has no power to do anything on her own. I suspect people started using this term to address women after the Taliban took over Afghanistan the first time in 1996. Taliban banned women from participating in every sector of life — social, political, and economic, and put men in charge of controlling women. Thus, women had little choice but to become fully dependent on men.

The Talib on the roof tells another soldier standing near the main entrance to let me in.

“Only she can enter, not you,” he says, stopping Olfat.

I don’t listen and pull Olfat`s hand until he is able to enter the gate, which is opened half way. Only a tiny person can make it through.

Inside, shoes and slippers are strewn everywhere. It seemed as if a shoe shop had discarded all its shoes.

Another gun is shot near my ear and pushes my focus away from the shoes.

I look up, a crowd of people is running from the Taliban chasing them. The Taliban continuously shoot their guns behind the crowd, scattering wildly.

I stand staring at them in disbelief. What’s going on? I wonder. A crowd of boys behind the fleeing innocent bystanders takes my attention. They carry a chapar kat (sometimes used chapar-kat to carry dead bodies). A body is on the chapar kat that they are holding, half covered by a scarf. The white scarf is blood stained.

“Sister, they are gonna kill you, like you see they shot our friend,” one of the boys from the crowd shouted from a corner pointing at the injured body on the chapar kat and asked me to leave the airport. “Go back home,” he said. “They are like wild animals. They don’t care about anyone. They will kill you.”

I stood confused whether — do I to listen or keep walking.

The sound of gunshots from every corner is constant discretion. I can lose my life at any moment. The thought won’t let me go.

I held Olfat`s hand tighter and kept walking. I knew I could not survive life under the Taliban regime. At this point, I didn’t care whether I would be killed.

I do not see anyone from SOLA. I take my phone and text to learn where everyone is.

“Leave the main airport entrance immediately before you get killed,” one of them texts. They instructed that I go to the Aabi Gate.

I turn around and ask Olfat to follow me. We ran to the back gate. On the way my eyes go to the strewn shoes again — the shoes and slippers of people fleeing Taliban pursuit.

Olfat and I take a taxi and come to the Aabi Gate. The same chaos here. The Taliban shooting in the air and chasing people; the long lashes, people being whipped. They ask everyone to sit down and not move. The way to the main gate is blocked by barbed wire. I sat down immediately and pulled Olfat`s hand to sit down.

Every one to two hours a truck full of Taliban stops by the front line. They read names and ask the ones with names on the list to go to the main gate.

We are waiting under the hot sun. The heat of the hot summer is unbearable. Hours pass and the truck does not return. I am so hungry. I have not eaten since the night before and the day is gone and it’s evening. It is getting dark. I am still holding Olfat`s hand tightly. The whole crowd around us is sitting. Some children are asleep in their mom’s arms. Some are crying because they are hungry. Most people are barefooted. They look tired, pale and their lips are cracked out of thirst and hunger. Some are lying on the dusty ground.

There is a noise from behind. I turn and see a huge crowd running. They are trying to get into the main entrance. They will trample us. I stand and hold Olfat.

We are jostled by the crowd. It’s hard to see. I lose my bearings and I’m pushed and Olfat breaks free of my grip. I can’t see him, I can’t find him in the dark, the massive crowd that looks like a living organism.

Olfat finally finds me and clutches my hand.

“Let’s leave,” he says. “There is no way we can make it to the main entrance in this crowd. The Taliban are getting wild. We will be killed tonight.”

I let Shabana know that we are leaving. She asks me to come back to the same place early in the morning.

I wake up early the next morning and ask Olfat to accompany me to the Aabi gate again. Just as it was the previous day, the terrified crowd, the Taliban with guns, the sound of gunfire, the cries of children, the families begging the Taliban, the scorching heat of the hot sun and hunger and thirst — we are back.

The day is gone again and it is a dark evening. We could not make it to the main entrance and we again had to return home.

Three days go by and we cannot make it to the main entrance. Finally after sleepless nights, my heart filled with stress and tension about what might happen next, we make it to the Aabi entrance. But they don’t allow Olfat to enter. I cannot leave him behind but I have no choice. I close my eyes and he makes his way outside.

I stand in the line with the rest of the students and staff from SOLA. There is a short, thick wall in front of us. Everyone is standing in line facing the wall. On the wall there are American soldiers standing with a list of names. Whoever’s name is on the list, they pull the person up and leave him/her to the other side of the wall.

My eyes go to a parent with a little baby of probably a few months old. They hold the baby up to the soldier to take. The soldier holds the baby upside down by one leg for minutes until the parents make it to the other side of the wall. Then they throw the baby down to the parents. My heart melts to see that even the newborn babies have to go through this life altering trauma, something never to be forgotten, rather lived over and over again.

I can’t jump from the wall to the other side. What if I break my leg? I wonder.

My name is called. I run near the wall and a soldier holds my hand and helps me climb the wall. He pulls me up and asks me to jump.

I jump.

We wait on the other side of the wall until all the students and staff of SOLA can make it over. We’re in a corner for three days with no food, no water under the hot sun.

A soldier distributes boxes of food every few hours. I get a box — some biscuits and different American snacks. I assume American soldiers bring snacks with them everywhere they travel. I never liked biscuits but these biscuits feel so good in this hunger. I eat a bunch of them and drink a few bottles of water then put my head on my arm and lie down on the ground. It is late night and everyone is lying on the cement ground with their eyes closed, but some can’t seem to shut theirs. I fell asleep immediately because I was so tired and had not slept for the whole week.

After three days in the same spot we’re asked to a counter to show our passports and travel documents. Bands are secured to our wrists and we’re lined up to get into the airplane.

The crowd waiting in front of us is huge.

How can we all fit into the plane? the thought crosses my mind.

But this is not your average passenger plane. It’s a military plane with no windows and no seats.

We squeeze tight to make space for everyone. And after a few hours the door closes and we’re in the air. I can’t see anything and it’s hot as hell and not enough air to breath. It’s suffocating. I am weary. I want to sleep but there is no space to put my head down or extend my legs. After a few hours I find myself asleep on a man’s shoulder who is sitting next to me with his wife and two children.

The next day I have a new identity, an Afghan refugee in a camp in Qatar. But I know, I realize in that moment, that I am an Exile.

The life in refugee camps is no different than the life of animals on a farm. Thousands of us squeezed under a single shelter, and with just enough food to keep us alive. Not enough washrooms. No showers for days. Unbearable heat.

I am alive and breathing but not really living. Yet, I did not mind the bad living conditions inside the refugee camp; I was more worried about the situation back in Afghanistan so I had no time to think about what was happening inside the camp. I was thankful that I was safe here at least.

The stay in the Qatar refugee camp lasted around 5 days — then the entire SOLA group flew to Kigali, Rwanda, our new home.

I am in the United States now after living in Rwanda for six months. Life is nice, safe and luxurious here, but I never enjoy it as one should because I’m from Afghanistan. When I left Afghanistan, I left a big piece of me behind. I am here in a safe place, but I am constantly distracted by the horrifying news I hear about my country, people, family and friends back at home. Life has gotten worse there. I carry the pain of seeing what is happening to my loved ones while trying to stay focused and strong here to be able to survive.

To be able to study.

To be able to hope.

To be able to calm myself with the perhaps illusory hopes that my education will help my people one day.

To calm myself when I feel helpless.

To be able to tolerate the Taliban closing the doors of schools and universities to girls.

To be able to bear the cries of my sister who’s university was closed on the second day of her final exams.

To be able to tolerate that women are banned from work, education, travel and stepping out of the house.

To be able to tolerate when hundreds of girls are killed in the Kabul University attack by Taliban.

To be able to tolerate the memory of every classmate and professor of mine shot in class in the attack on American University of Afghanistan.

To be able to tolerate my cousins slaughtered by the Taliban because they worked in the army for the previous government.

To be able to tolerate the fact that millions of people are starving in my country.

To be able to stay strong while witnessing many members of every family in Afghanistan killed in the war.

To be able to bear the pain of seeing how Afghan refugees are tortured on every border.

To still tolerate the pain of seeing Afghan refugees thrown into a river by Iranian officers.

To be able to tolerate seeing many Afghan refugees burned alive on the Iran border.

To have the guts to see that hundreds of Afghan refugees were forced by Turkish officers on the border to stand naked in freezing winter for days until they all died from the cold and their bodies thrown away, while some bodies were sent back to their families.

To be able tolerate the cruelty of the unfair world.

To be able to still live.