Atefeh Alizadeh has been sleeping very poorly for two days. She spent eleven years of her life in Afghanistan and two years in Iran. The 19-year-old has lived in Berlin for almost six years. Soon she would like to begin training in health and nursing. “I can do that here, but my cousins in Afghanistan cannot, from now on they can stop dreaming again.”
Her hometown Ghazni, near the capital Kabul, is now also in the hands of the Taliban. Alizadeh is in daily contact with her local family. The girls and women in particular are very afraid of the Taliban. “You have no freedom, you are no longer allowed to go out alone.” That may be possible with a husband, father or brothers, but even then only in a full-body scarf, the so-called chador, explains Atefeh Alizadeh. “We didn’t have a nice life in Afghanistan and yet I miss my country very much.”
For others, Afghanistan is not a place of birth, not a home in the classic sense: Mahdi A. was born in Tehran and spent a large part of his youth in the Iranian capital before he came to Berlin. “I’ve never been to Afghanistan, but the country is part of my origins, my parents come from there. In Iran, I was always referred to as an Afghan. ”
The 19-year-old says the pictures from Kabul make him angry. He sees the blame primarily in politics. “The wrong people were always funded. In the 20 years only political interests have played a role. The poor people! ”Mahdi A. is Shiite, like about a fifth of the inhabitants of Afghanistan. At the moment, Muharram, a holy month in Islam, is celebrated by Shiites with mourning ceremonies. In Afghanistan, says Mahdi A., these ceremonies now ended with many dead.
The Taliban did not come overnight
Last year, despite everything, many Afghans on site had the feeling that things were moving, that there was a development, recalls Tufan Sayed. The 34-year-old was there professionally with political institutions. He no longer had any confidence. The Berlin lawyer Said Haider belongs to the first generation of Afghans in exile who have been born outside of their families’ homes since the conflict began in the 1970s. He is surprised “as everyone pretends to be so horrified”. Because the Taliban did not come overnight. The warfare was irresponsible.
Like many Afghans in Berlin, Haider expects an admission of guilt for the futility of the military operation in the Hindu Kush – and from the international community that they accept refugees from Afghanistan because they are not safe in Pakistan and Iran.
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The Senate also dealt with the reception of refugees from Afghanistan on Tuesday. According to Tagesspiegel information, it should be about how many people Berlin could take in and to what extent the city is prepared, among other things, in the area of accommodation. Senator for Economic Affairs Ramona Pop (Greens) campaigned for refugees from Afghanistan to be accommodated quickly.
Berlin ready to take in people
It was a humanitarian catastrophe that with the withdrawal of the troops no evacuation plans had been made for the local workers and their families, aid organizations, women’s and human rights activists, she told Tagesspiegel.
“We therefore have an obligation to take in those people who are now fleeing the Taliban. Quick quota solutions are now needed in Germany for refugees from Afghanistan. Berlin is ready to accept people. ”
A rally took place in front of the Foreign Office on Monday evening. The Berlin Greens had called for this.
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