Waiting for them to come: First Afghan female mayor

NEW DELHI: Afghanistan’s first and youngest female mayor, Zarifa Ghafari (27), has survived three assassination attempts, but it’s probably different this time. Looking death in the face is not quite the same as waiting for it. “I’m sitting here waiting for them to come. There is no one to help me or my family. I’m just sitting with them and my husband. And they will come for people like me and kill me,” she said as she witnessed the government fall to the Taliban.
Zarifa’s father, General Abdul Wasi Ghafari, had been gunned down by militants in November 2020, just 20 days after the third attempt to assassinate her failed. She now counts the hours in apprehension of what fate has in store for her, and those of her ilk, this time.
Like her, Kubra Behroz was a proud, defiant woman when she joined the Afghan National Army in 2011 amid a western-backed campaign. Now, with the Talibani occupation of Kabul, she and her fellow women soldiers are scared of being raped and killed.
Behroz, who has faced harassment ever since she became a soldier, said there has been a surge in threats and anonymous phone calls in recent weeks. “They tell me they know how to find me… they will kill me and my family,” The Telegraph, London, quoted her as saying.
As the country descends into chaos before her eyes, Behroz — a mother of two — said she would try to flee to Pakistan, adding: “Although we don’t have passports, we are now compelled to try and cross the border illegally,” she said.
Niloofar Rahmani, the first female pilot in the Afghan Air Force, is horrified at the thought of what could happen. “Afghans prefer to die than live under the Taliban regime because they don’t want to relive the horrors they faced 20 years ago. The Afghan president abandoned the country and its people,” she said, referring to the viral video of hundreds clinging to a US aircraft, and another clip of two people falling to their death mid-air.
Rahmani, who had to seek asylum in the US in 2018 after threats from the Taliban, added: “The Taliban is going to destroy every symbol of freedom for women that America brought. As an Afghan woman, I would like President Biden to hear me. Please save the families, they need you. The women, the little girls… and please save my family.”
Pashtana Xalma Khan Durrani, who runs an NGO focused on educational resources for women and girls, had to go into hiding after the Taliban takeover. “I mourned my country yesterday. All the good times. Today we get back and we fight. Until we get what is rightfully ours. General Educational Rights for girls and Right to work for Afghan women," she told a news agency.
Durrani lamented the fact that everything she had worked for during the past 20 years, each glass ceiling she had broken so far was “for nothing”, adding that it shattered her to even imagine how her students’ future would look like under the Taliban regime, “once they (students) stop believing in themselves and their dreams”.
Undeterred by the impending threat, she said she would “go to any lengths” to ensure that women and girls exercise their right to education.
According to @HelpingHandUSA, an estimated 4,00,000 civilians have been forcibly displaced since the start of 2021, with 80% of them being women and children. In an earlier statement, UNICEF had said that 20 children were killed and 130 children injured in Kandahar province; 2 children were killed and 3 were injured in Khost province; and in Paktia province, 5 children were killed and 3 were injured.
Netizens have blasted world powers and international agencies for failing to mitigate the unfolding humanitarian crisis, with some slamming US President Joe Biden and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation over their silence.
A Twitter user, @Toon__E, wrote: “#HELP my brother-in-law an Afghan National in Kabul who interpreted for US troops is scared for his, his parents, his wife and two children’s life. His Sister was abducted by the Taliban the other day. Does anyone know how they can get out?”
Author Khaled Hosseini shared a heartrending video on social media, wherein a young Afghan girl could be seen saying: “We do not count because we were born in Afghanistan. I cannot help but cry. No one cares about us. We’ll die slowly in history.” Hosseini wrote: “I am heartbroken. The women & girls of Afghanistan have been abandoned. What of their dreams, hopes? The rights they have fought two decades for? #PrayforAfghanistan”.
Earlier, in an open letter, filmmaker Sahraa Karimi — general director and first female chairperson of the Afghan Film Organisation, the only state-owned film company — appealed to the world community to amplify the horrors faced by Afghan citizens as the Taliban took over.