In hiding: Please help this Afghan family

Hi, my name is Theresa and I´m raising funds for my Afghan student and friend Ali, so he can support his family in Afghanistan until it is safe for them to come out of hiding. Ali has asylum in Spain after fighting the Taliban in his homeland. You can read his story below.

Key points:

- Ali was a professional NATO-trained soldier who fought the Taliban, but fled his homeland after being severely wounded

- He was granted asylum in Spain, where he is working in agriculture, trying to build a new life despite being partly-crippled by his injuries

- Since the fall of the Afghan government, Ali’s family have lost their jobs and land, so he is their only source of income

-As relatives of a squadron leader who fought the Taliban,  Ali´s family are in hiding as they are in great danger of reprisals 

 

 

Refugee and former squadron-leader Ali (Karim) first fled Afghanistan in 2015 having fought and been seriously wounded by a Taliban attack on his military team´s convoy. He was 24 years old. As a NATO-trained specialist in clearing road mines, Ali was often taught in English during his four years at the Military Academy in Kabul, and later worked alongside the American military. He left behind a family he had long been estranged from, having renounced the Muslim religion at a young age.

 

A dangerous place to renounce Islam

 

“Religion causes so many wars that I cannot be a part of it, but I love my parents like my two eyes. They are the victims of previous generations because my grandfather kicked my father out of school so he would not become a Christian. I miss them so much”

 

Deserting the army may sound terrible, but the young Afghan, who led squadrons of between 40 and 80 soldiers, had been shot multiple times in his left leg and even after being helicoptered to hospital in Kabul for 45 days, he was in no fit state to fight on. His left fibula (a small bone in the calf which supports the surrounding muscle) was removed, but not replaced. Despite crippling pain, he was nonetheless sent back to Kunar, on the border with Pakistan, to continue the war against Al Qaida and the Taliban.

 

 

Ali recalls:

 

“I remember once we detonated 24 landmines on a road of just three kilometres, under constant fire from Taliban hiding in the trees.

 

“I did my best to help keep these crazy extremists from seizing power again. After the shooting, I couldn´t go on due to the pain in my leg, but the army wouldn´t let me rest. In the end, I asked for help from a pilot who I´d trained with at the Military Academy and he got me out of Kunar and back to Kabul.”

 

 

 

 

 

Turned on by one of his own

 

Karim knew there was nothing left for him in his homeland. Worst of all, the man that placed a bomb inside his car and later shot him repeatedly was one of their own soldiers – a driver for their medic who was secretly working as a spy for the Taliban.

 

“While I had four years of intense training at the Kabul Military Academy, most of my squadron were poorly-educated with only a basic level of military skills. Still, I thought I could trust them”.

 

Travelling over land and sea through more than ten countries, the young man was joined on his precarious journey by fellow refugees from Afghanistan and Syria. His first destination was Norway, as here he had a friend from high school who encouraged him to choose this ‘safe haven’, believing it represented his best chance of gaining asylum.

 

Rejected by Norway…but not by Norwegians

 

It was a choice he later regretted with enormous sadness. Despite phenomenal support from a dedicated group of compassionate and generous civilians, both his original request and subsequent appeal were rejected.

 

“The amazing ‘underground’ group of Norwegians around Oslo who work together to help Afghan refugees spent a fortune on lawyers trying to help me stay. They also offered me friendship, Norwegian lessons, accommodation and love. I will always be grateful for their efforts.”

 

However, the Norwegian government at that time was starting to implement a ‘zero flexibility’ policy when it came to Afghans, regardless of their personal situation. All applicants were to be deported back to their homeland.

 

On the run again

 

Karim had no choice but to flee once more, leaving his ‘Norwegian family’, including a kindly older lady called Bjorghild, who was 'like a second mother' to him.

 

This time, he made it to Malmo in Sweden, where the police arrested him, to be returned to Norway for deportation. Knowing he faced certain death if sent back to Afghanistan, Ali asked for permission to smoke one cigarette, leaving all his possessions in the police car. The officers agreed and again, he ran, without money or mobile.

 

Losing himself in the crowds, he managed to sneak onto a train to Denmark and then a local bus to Hamburg, to avoid passport checks. In Hamburg, he had friends – other Afghan refugees from his military days. He says his great mistake was not originally requesting asylum in Germany instead of Norway, but at that time the country was awash with Syrian refugees, and by now he was no longer eligible to apply.

 

His friends helped him with funds to get to Paris, where a stranger was kind enough to put his own ID number into a ticket machine so that the refugee could pay for his passage to Spain.

“It’s ironic as I had so many military commendations but no passport I could use as identification. I was running out of hope”

 

 

Certificates detailing Karim´s knowledge of military intelligence, reconnaissance and mine clearance were posted to him from a friend in his homeland

 

 

Safe Haven: Arrival in Spain

 

It was on the train in Burgos that Ali was again picked up by undercover police, only this time he was in a country with a policy of NOT deporting any Afghans back to Norway, knowing they faced deportation to a dangerous country. Instead, he was eventually taken to an NGO for refugees called ACCEM, where ‘amazing and dedicated’ staff believed his story and decided to help him seek refuge in Spain.

 

The charity, with a base in Castillo y Leon, supported Karim for the first 18 months with accommodation, food, a lawyer to fight his case, Spanish lessons, counselling and advocacy. Ali was awarded refugee status and then asylum in Spain in 2017 at the age of 26.

 

 

The young man's left calf remains withered. He is hoping to get better medical treatment so he can walk unaided and work without pain. This video shows that his left foot is useless unless tightly bandaged. 

 

 

Picking oranges in Andalucia

 

 

 

 

Nowadays, the thirty-year-old is resident in Huelva, working in agriculture for the last two years. Despite sometimes struggling with extreme muscle pain and weakness from long-term damage caused by his war wounds, Karim is a hard worker. He keeps busy helping his migrant flatmates and neighbours with paperwork or house-moves, working out, cooking or walking his beloved dog Cara. When he can, he picks fruit seven days a week to send more money to his family. His dream is to get a Spanish driving licence, and one day work in a less physically demanding job so he can rest his withered leg. But staying busy serves another purpose: it stops Ali from dwelling on his fears for his family or traumas from the past, which often overwhelm him.

 

“Even before the Taliban took over, when I was on leave in Gazni I had to be protected at all times by three to four bodyguards. You could not walk unarmed if you worked for the Government. Our community was a mix of pro and anti-Taliban, and they knew exactly who my family and I were.

 

“Their supporters did NOT like women studying or working outside the home, so this has sadly never been possible for my sister.

 

"I remember once when I was on leave, I saw a female schoolteacher in my hometown shot dead by a passing motorcyclist right in front of me. It was a lawless area even while American troops were in Afghanistan.”

 

 

Ali's sister Hakima, (left, with their mum) was home-schooled for her own safety

 

Family Matters

 

His mum, dad and sister had a lot of land in their village, about 100km from Gazni and 230km from the capital. They owned around forty sheep, a horse and two donkeys, as well as many goats and hens. However, as American troops started pulling out, they got word that the Taliban were about to re-take their village, and had no choice but to leave everything behind and share a van with other families heading for the capital. Here, it would be easier to hide from the extremists who had seized control. His parents had already burnt Ali´s military uniforms and all their photo albums, to his mother´s enormous anguish.

 

“Since the Taliban took over again, my family have had to abandon their lands where they depended on the wheat and fruit they grew to get by. As relatives of a Taliban fighter who worked for the democratic government, it is too dangerous for them to stay there,” Ali explains.

 

Cooped-up in hiding

 

The three of them joined Karim´s brothers, who were already living in the capital. The second oldest after Ali had trained as an electrician under Canadian professionals, doing his Masters Degree in India before returning to his homeland to teach at the university and run a family business of electricians. His younger brothers worked with him, while continuing their studies, until three months ago.

The work stopped the moment the Taliban tanks rolled in.

His two youngest brothers also dropped out of higher education as their skilled teachers were replaced or supervised by Islamic teachers called Mullahs, who beat students and, having no interest in engineering or maths, focus their teachings on the Koran.

 

Three of Ali's four younger brothers are pictured here. Names are excluded for their own protection.

 

With no work, money or access to their crops or animals, the family now share a rented house in Kabul, which Karim pays for, along with their food. He sends as much as he can via Western Union twice a month. From part of a military elite to semi-crippled agricultural labourer, he doesn´t earn much. In fact, Ali is only able to walk by strapping his left food in a tight bandage to maintain its position..

 

“I ran away from home aged ten because my family couldn´t accept that I didn´t want to be a practising Muslim. We didn´t have contact for a long time but eventually, our relationship improved.

 

“Living alone, thousands of miles from my homeland, I came to understand how important family is, and I miss mine terribly. We may not share the same religion, but we love each other and they need my help now.”