For Nani Agha’s household, it took nearly a whole month to reach at their new dwelling in Columbia. The household is from Kandahar, a area in south-central Afghanistan, and fled first to Kabul. From there, they boarded a tightly-packed aircraft to Qatar, then to Germany and at last to the U.S.
Agha is a former Afghan Particular Power unit officer who labored with the U.S. army. When the Taliban seized energy in his dwelling nation in August 2021, his household was designated as a goal of the militant group.
Kandahar has traditionally been a Taliban stronghold. Patrol teams routinely stopped ladies and kids within the streets to acquire details about who they had been and if that they had allegiance to the Afghan authorities. As a result of ever-present risk of the Taliban, Nani Agha couldn’t ship his sons to high school or really feel secure when he left his dwelling. At college, children quickly could be requested for details about their fathers.
“My spouse would communicate with me about it over the telephone,” Agha mentioned. “A few of my buddies’ kids had been kidnapped.” Agha mentioned the Taliban typically lower the youngsters’s fingers and despatched movies to the guardian in order that he would go away his job.
When the Taliban lastly overthrew the Afghan authorities, Agha knew his household had no different possibility however to depart the whole lot behind. At this time, the household lives in a quiet dwelling, the youngsters attend college and life is seemingly regular. But the troubles and ache of their escape are a continuing reminder of one of many hardest moments in Agha’s life.
“We’re, due to Allah, pleased with this life as effectively,” Agha mentioned. “Slowly, with time, our life will enhance right here. The Afghans who got here right here inform us that our lives will enhance right here.”