Afghan refugees in India and Indonesia speak out: 'am I a human or not?'

About 2.5 million Afghans are scattered around the globe, in the United States, parts of Europe, Australia and Southeast Asia, making them the second largest refugee population in the world, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Many fled the country in the years following the US invasion in 2001, due to economic and security instability. More than 14,000 have settled in the Indian capital of New Delhi. Many run bakery stores, medicine shops and restaurants in the lanes of Lajpat Nagar and Bhogal. An estimated 8,000 are in Indonesia but as the country does not take in refugees, the asylum seekers are confined to camps while they wait for a third country to take them in. Now with the Taliban's seizure of Kabul, Afghan refugees are grappling not just with daily challenges but worries for the fate of their families back home. Here are their stories, in their own words:

Bibi Rahima Farhangdost, 31, is a Shia Muslim Sadat from Ghazni. She left Afghanistan in 2014 and now lives in West Java.

"I lost two of my brothers who worked as police officers and who died because of Taliban attacks. When I was in Afghanistan, I graduated top of my class in high school and got an A for all my classes. I went to work as a teacher, teaching English in a primary school and I also trained as a nurse. Then I was warned, a few times, by the Taliban that they did not want me to work, but I ignored it. Then they came looking for me in 2014, which is when I left.

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"Unfortunately my mother and three nephews are still in Afghanistan. I haven't been able to contact them for three weeks because their number doesn't work. I don't know if they are alive or dead or if they have left. I am so worried about them. I feel worried not just for my family but for all of Afghanistan. The Taliban have not changed. They still have their own limitations that they want to put on the Afghan people. I don't believe them at all. Just like the president, they are politicians. Our president said he would not leave us but he did. We cannot forget how the Taliban burned our homes and killed our people so we don't believe them. We know what they have done, especially to women in Afghanistan.

"I am really worried. I can't do anything here. I can't even contact my family. I would like to bring them to Indonesia if I can. My nephew is getting big now, he is 16, and if the Taliban knows his father was a police officer it will be very dangerous. I can't sleep at night because I am so worried about my family.

"Life is very hard for me in Indonesia. One day passing feels like a year. But I am trying to learn from this. I work as an interpreter here for other refugees and teach classes, one in Bahasa Indonesia and one in English. I am also still trying to serve my fellow refugees as a nurse, but I am limited by my own health as I have asthma.

"I have been in Indonesia for seven years but where are my human rights? I am a lonely girl here and I have no help. Am I a human or not? Why are other countries not helping refugees? Why can you not hear my voice? I have decided many times to kill myself. It is so hard to manage our emotions here. Why don't people care about us? Where are our basic rights like education and health? Seven years is a long time. I have lost my age and my people have lost everything.

"Everyone wants to live in their own country but the Taliban made it too dangerous so we had to leave. It is not fair. We are just like other people, we have human rights but now I am brave enough to say shame on human rights. Every week I send an email to UNHCR but they never reply. I can't go and see anyone in person now because of Covid-19. It is a really bad situation for refugees. The only thing we can do is decide to kill ourselves. It is not easy for someone to kill themselves but we are helpless. How long should we wait?"

Mohammad Musa Natiq, 37, is a Shia Muslim Hazara from Jaghori district, Ghazni province, who worked as a civil engineer for the US army. He left Afghanistan in 2017 and now lives with his wife, 33, and daughter, 2, in West Java.

"[Before I left], I thought the situation was getting better so I wouldn't need to go to the United States. I thought we would just build things in Afghanistan. But then the Taliban said that they would hang anyone who was found working for the United States so I left because it was becoming too dangerous.

"When I heard the news that Afghanistan fell in one day, I felt confused. All my family are in Afghanistan like my parents, brothers and sisters. I haven't been able to talk to them in over a week because there is no internet in Jaghori. The situation is critical. There is no food and everyone is trying to escape. Shops and schools have shut down. I cannot think about my family ... that I am here and they are there. I cannot do anything to help them.

"I will be happy if I can go to another country and live a normal life but I have not had a resettlement interview. For four years and six months I have not heard anything from UNHCR."

Aasad*, 35, is a Shia Muslim Hazara from Jaghori district, Ghazni province, who worked as an interpreter for the Canadian forces before leaving Afghanistan in 2013. He now lives in West Java.

"When the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 1994 they came to my house and beat my family. They beat my little brother who was five years old until his brain came out. Even now, if I see someone dressed in religious clothes like the Taliban I feel afraid. I am traumatised if I'm honest.

"My mother, five sisters and three brothers are still in Afghanistan and until now they have been OK. My nephew managed to escape. He was in an army stronghold in Kabul and we don't know where he is now, just that he managed to escape. Did you see the pictures of the airplane and the people who fell down from it? I'm not laughing because it is funny, but because I feel useless and like a helpless man.

"Those who are against the Shia will use my religion against me. It is dangerous for me and now I don't feel well, even in Indonesia. I don't feel safe here even though I pray at the mosque with Sunni people. I'm afraid they will kill and torture me. I'm just trying to find how I can live in a country safely without any quarrel."

Sahil Ahmad, 25, is from Mazar-i-Sharif. He left Afghanistan on August 14 and is now a street-hawker in Lajpat Nagar, India.

"I came back to India just two days before the Taliban captured my hometown, Mazar-i-Sharif. It's a harrowing situation there. The Talibs have now taken over the entire country, what should we do? They have superior arms and ammunition, bombs, rockets and whatnot.

"I have been living in New Delhi for the past two years but last year went back to Afghanistan. But while I was there, the Taliban was capturing dozens of districts overnight. So I booked my flight to India. I guess my plane was one of the last ones which took off before the havoc wreaked on Hamid Karzai International Airport.

"I came here safely but there the people of my land were dying with fear. In Afghanistan, no one knows what will happen tomorrow. Here in India, it's not a heaven either. But thanks to the almighty Allah, we are able to live freely - we earn money here through our businesses and manage to survive. But India itself is struggling to provide food, shelter and clothing to its people. Here, so many poor Indian citizens sleep on the road everyday. When they themselves don't have anything, what should we expect from them? What will they give to us?"

Naseer Ahmad, 34, is a translator and travel agent who has been living in Delhi for a decade.

"Since yesterday, I have been trying to call home but it's not connecting. Last night I got a message from someone that my parents are safe and I should not be worried. But how do I not feel worried? It's not possible. Even the internet is sometimes working and sometimes not working. My wife and children are here with me but my mother and four brothers are in Afghanistan. I am thinking about them all day.

"I have been living in India for the past 10 years, working as a translator and travel agent. Some of [my wages], I send back home and the rest of it helps me pay my rent etc. Right now, Afghanistan is in a very difficult position. In the past, the Taliban had a stronghold only in villages but now it's in major cities. With the kind of government they run, it will throw Afghanistan 40 years backwards. It's appalling to witness this - people work towards betterment of society and go forward with modern times. But we are going backwards.

"The Taliban are saying that they will not do anything with the people or women in particular. But once they consolidate the government, then the old terror of the Taliban will be resurrected: women will be allowed to go out only with their brother, father or husband; they won't be able to attend schools. In Islam, show me one ruling which commands that women cannot pursue formal education. It's all their own made-up religion. It's common sense, if there are no lady doctors in the society, no gynaecologists for our pregnant woman, who will our mothers and sisters turn to? From 1996 to 2001, when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, a male doctor had to instruct a midwife behind the curtain to deliver a child. Tell me, how is this practical?"

"The Taliban will be waiting for me at the airport and as soon as I land, they will ask 'Come here, what were you speaking against us in that interview'.

"Despite that, my heart is heavy right now. I am sorry, I cannot speak. Please find someone else.

"Although my immediate family and I are here, so many family members are stuck in Afghanistan. Whatever we are suffering right now is because of Pakistan. They do not want peace to prevail in Afghanistan. I don't know why but that's the story we have grown up listening to from our elders. I believe, if the Indian government doesn't do anything, the Taliban might enter here as well. If they could turn an entire country upside down, why can't they, for example, infiltrate Kashmir?

"I have only one complaint. The Indian government or the UNHCR are good for nothing. They don't do anything for us. We get no help from them. The UN gave us a Blue Card to identify as refugees but no one recognises it here, we don't even have the proper status of asylum seekers. Because of that, we don't get rooms in India as we are unable to give any identity card to the landlord and he doesn't accept the UN-accredited Blue Card.

"So, we are stuck in the middle, and can go neither here nor there. That's our story, our sad story."

* Some identities have been withheld

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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