It’s after ten at night. Vasant Vihar’s posh place where the UNHCR office is located is of unusual excitement.
Zainab Hamidi, a 22-year-old Afghan national, sits before the UN Refugee Panel. Her family left Afghanistan ten years ago on a tourist visa and has lived in India ever since. What forced her family to leave their homeland? She answers – Taliban and their terror.
“My mother used to work as a teacher at a state school. My older brother worked as an interpreter for an American agency in Kabul, ”Hamidi told the correspondent.
“The Taliban knocked on our door. After threatening us, they picked up my younger sister one day when she was going to school. Her body was left on our doorstep three days later. “
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The Taliban threatened us again to distance ourselves from the government authorities. “At the time, our priority was to move to a safer place. We came to India in 2012 and tried to relocate to a country that would accept as immigrants or citizens. “
Hamidi understands that she shouldn’t protest on the street in this residential area at this odd hour. However, she says that she and many Afghans like her run out of options.
“The Taliban have conquered our country. We used to hope that we would at least have our home, but we have lost that too. We are citizens without a home, ”she emphasized. Hamidi says they have not only lost their land, but also a source of income, as many of these Afghan nationals have been doing business between Kabul and Delhi.
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Hamidi is not alone. Hundreds of Afghans do not want to leave the path on which the office of the UN refugee organization in New Delhi is located. Each of them has only two demands – refugee status and the processing of their application for the countries that are ready to accept them as immigrants in this hour of crisis.
Since the morning of August 23, hundreds of Aghan women, children, youth and the elderly have been staging a sit-in in front of the UNHCR.
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Ejaz Ahmad, 19, is one of those young Afghan protesters. His father, who used to work in the Afghan armed forces, was killed in a suicide bombing in Kabul in September 2016.
“We feared that the Taliban would attack our family again, so we left Afghanistan in 2018 with the hope of gaining status in countries like Canada and England,” said Ahmad. India should be a temporary home for his family. However, her application was not approved by the UNHCR and later everything came to a standstill due to the Covid pandemic.
“My mother wants me and my younger sisters to study. To get a higher education. However, this would only be possible if we were granted immigration status, ”said Ahmad.
He had studied in Afghanistan up to grade 12. “I can’t afford the fees for overseas students at Indian universities. My mother has a state of health. So I can neither study nor work in India, ”said the 19-year-old Afghan youth.
“We just want the UNHCR office to process our applications and send us to the countries that want to accept us as immigrants,” said Ahmad.
His friend Wali, 19, has just left 12th grade at the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) in Delhi. In contrast to Ahmad, he seems more impatient. He’s frustrated and angry.
“This endless wait has made us frustrated and angry with the UNHCR. Otherwise, what would you feel if your future is uncertain? Pure frustration, of course, ”said Wali. It lists the countries that have shown willingness to accept Afghan nationals as immigrants at this hour of crisis.
Wali grew up listening to the Taliban horror stories. And he never thought that the terrorist group would return to power with such brutal violence. An entire generation like Wali feels trapped as the crisis unfolds in Afghanistan and the Taliban tighten their grip as they build their government.
Wali and a hundred others seem determined to spend their night outside of the UNHCR. They say “would not leave this trail unless the UN body gives us clarity about our status”.
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