Editor’s Note: Hasht-e Subh Daily has decided to reflect the impact of the recent upheaval in Afghanistan on the people’s lives. Therefore, ‘the Story of People’ has been created to reflect the stories of Afghan civilians from a first-person perspective. Afghan civilians’ photos, videos, experiences and short notes are published on this webpage. People’s stories will be published in Pashto, Persian and English. The contents that will be published in the Story of People help the audience to be informed about what is happening in Afghanistan.
On August 15, when Kabul fell completely to the Taliban, all hopes were dashed and life lost its meaning. Two days later, some friends decided to leave Afghanistan, which was warmly welcomed by some others.
The departure date was set three days later. Everyone was looking to collect the necessary supplies and travel money. My brother and I were among those who decided to leave Afghanistan.
Friends, each, in turn, was in a hurry. A moment of delay in preparation would have annoyed friends. Out of a large number of friends, a group of six decided to move to Iran.
August 18 was the day of our departure. On Wednesday afternoon, we sadly left Kabul for Nimroz, despite everything we had left behind. We spent the night in Nimroz province with different stories about the situation of the smuggling route that we were telling each other.
On Friday night, we started our first illegal trip to Iran. When we got out of the car and were ordered to run, there were about 500 of us, half of whom were women and young children. I cried to myself, saying: “God! What is the guilt of these women and children that you caught in this fate?” These chats no longer worked. Each struggled to overtake the other to escape the beatings of Baloch smugglers and thieves’ ambushes.
We had spent about ten hours of walking and running, which took the strength of all the passengers. We crossed the border wall and reached the territory of Iran. Unfortunately, this was not the end of our journey. There was a long way to go and we should have been more prepared in advance.
When we got to a dormitory, I felt sorry for myself and the country we lived in. Everything seemed sad, from the lack of food to the torture of passengers by the Iranian Balochis. During the journey, each Baluch in turn beat the passengers without a reason.
We spent a short time in this prison and finally got to the Toyota car, the details of which I had heard before. About twenty people drove in a small Toyota car. It took us about ten hours to reach a dry and empty desert where there was no trace of food and Balochis to harass us. It was a desert of infinite size. We spent two whole days in deplorable conditions. We burned during the day from the heat and trembled from the cold at night.
After the desert, a Peugeot car came to us. Fourteen people moved in each car. It was overwhelming for me, but I had no choice but to put up with it.
In short, we spent the days in woods, plains, mountains, and caves, and nights in the cars that were hard to even breathe.
One night, we ran for a full twelve hours. We had pneumomediastinum. Women and children were weakened, but the traffickers forced us to run.
After ten days of arduous and breathtaking journey, we reached our final destination, which was Tehran.
This was the end of our journey, but this is not the end of our destiny. We continue.
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