When the Taliban arrived, many Afghan students had to flee. Now they wonder what kind of life they can build and where

It’s an everyday, even mundane spectacle in Berlin, but it brings suffering to Mohmmad Imran, an Afghan photojournalist.

“I feel hopeless when I see students with books or going to college,” he says. “It reminds me of my classmates, college and the golden days when I was a student, not a refugee.”

Afghanistan’s fall to the Taliban this year forced many college students and schoolchildren to leave the country. Many are now trapped in refugee camps in various countries, awaiting an uncertain future. Having escaped to a camp in Germany, Imran, 23, says he is heartbroken at the state of his country and leaving it all behind.

When the Taliban first came to power in Afghanistan in the 1990s, taking pictures was prohibited, girls were not allowed to attend schools, women were not allowed to work, and there were no private schools or universities. However, just after the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, Afghan women went back to school and working outside the home.

Soon 39 public universities and 128 private higher education institutes were established; access to education increased and by 2020 the number of children in school had increased from 900,000 to more than 10 million, 39 per cent of them girls.

Meanwhile, thousands of private media outlets were established and tens of thousands worked in the media industry. Many small and medium-sized businesses, mostly run by young Afghan women and men, were created, and many youth programs were launched, providing training and job opportunities to millions of young people.

Since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in mid-August, more than 200,000 Afghans, including thousands of students, have fled, many leaving everything – family, friends, studies and jobs – to save their lives. Imran says that he had asked a Polish couple he had met on the Internet to help him leave the country and they approved his transfer to their country.

A week after the collapse of the old regime, Imran says, he received a phone call early one morning from the Polish embassy in India. He was instructed to go to Kabul airport to catch an evacuation flight. “I was happy and sad at the same time,” he says.

Imran says he made it through Taliban checkpoints and arrived at the airport, where his name was on a list for a place on a military plane bound for Tashkent, Uzbekistan. He had to spend a night at the airport before the plane took off. From Tashkent, he took a commercial flight to Warsaw.

After the quarantine in Poland, Imran moved to the refugee camp in Berlin.

“I had a good life in Afghanistan,” he says. “He had family and friends. I was studying at the university.

“But here I don’t have to worry about getting killed” for speaking up.

“Look at the current situation, the Taliban appoint their madrassa-student failed as university president. So we cannot stay silent and we will criticize the Taliban, as we know in response, they will arrest us. Other than that, some local Taliban were following me on social media and threatening me for my anti-Taliban views and they are still threatening me even in Europe.”

Most of the young Afghans who have fled the country are similarly trapped in refugee camps and hotels in foreign countries, along with their families. They are the lucky ones: Compared to the end of August, evacuation operations are now so limited that Afghans who want to leave the country flee illegally, many people turn to smugglers to get them out, and above all to Iran.

A Taliban spokesman, Ahamdullah Wasiq, says he believes Western countries have encouraged Afghans to flee. He says that after the US forces, whom he calls “the invaders,” left, most of the job opportunities created by them were lost, but so were government funds, businesses slumped, the economy weakened and people were forced to move elsewhere. countries to support their families.

“Our message to the youth and students still trying to get out of Afghanistan is that everyone should serve this country and stay here,” Wasiq says. “We assure you that there is no threat from the government and that the current economic problems are getting better day by day.”

But Imran says that “the Taliban say what they don’t do and do what they don’t say. They are telling the international media that educated Afghans should not leave Afghanistan, that there is no threat to their security.” But just a few days ago, he says, “university students in Nangarhar, Paktia and Kabul, as well as former government officials were killed. There is no guarantee of life. Taliban fighters are killing educated and experienced people.”

The Taliban have laid off many qualified government employees and installed mullahs in all key positions. Many highly educated former civil servants have been laid off and are at home, unemployed. Those who still go to their jobs have not been paid since August. The Taliban also banned music, art, and sports for girls.

Attaullah Wesa is the head of the Pen Path Civil Society, which has been working in war-torn areas in Afghanistan since 2005. Before the regime of President Ashraf Ghani this fall, Wesa had organized many youth awareness campaigns and, with the support of tribal elders, has reopened hundreds of schools that had been closed by the Taliban.

According to the United Nations Population Fund, about 65 percent of Afghans are under the age of 25. Wesa says that young Afghans, the future of the country, are forced to leave due to the closure of educational institutions, unemployment, poverty, abandonment and an uncertain future. .

“It is the responsibility of governments to provide learning and work opportunities for young people. If governments do not fulfill this responsibility, youth will become more distrustful and will choose an unknown direction, even if it is full of difficulties”, says Wesa.

Zarghona, a student in her final semester of economics at a private university in Kabul, left the capital in late September for Torkham Gate, a major junction between Afghanistan and Pakistan, not knowing if she would be able to make it to her destination. , the Pakistani city of Peshawar. “What if they force me to go back?” he became concerned and asked that his last name not be used to reduce the threat of retaliation from the Taliban.

Safe in Pakistan, Zarghona is staying with relatives and applying for various programs in an effort to be accepted for resettlement in a Western country. She recalls the frustrated dreams she had for herself and for Afghanistan: Zarghona had planned to create her own clothing brand in Afghanistan and abroad, with the intention of hiring women and helping them earn money by embroidering and sewing in their own homes, especially in rural areas.

Now, however, the prospect of being returned to Afghanistan, where no future awaits them, is terrifying for the students. However, finding educational opportunities in other countries, without educational certificates and financial support, is daunting.

Manizha, a 22-year-old former Kabul University fine arts student, was unable to reach Kabul airport due to the explosion at the Abbey gate in August and is still stuck in the capital city.

She says that every morning she calls her friends and former classmates hoping to find out that the university is reopening, but she is always disappointed. Manizha says that her family faces serious financial problems and sometimes she thinks about getting married so that her family will have a dowry.

Naimatullah Muslimyar, who used to live in the Kholm district of Balkh province, had hoped to go to university to study at one of his dream colleges, medicine or economics, but after the collapse of the government he fled Afghanistan.

“After the takeover of Kabul by the Taliban, I left. Now I live in a refugee camp in Kosovo with no plans for the future. I have no idea which country I will go to, but wherever I settle, I really want to continue my studies.”