Life under the shadow of the Taliban has been unbearable for many. When the Taliban seized power, a number of our compatriots were forced to leave their homeland and risked their lives on the dangerous illegal route.
One of those people is Rizvan Hamraz. Hamraz narrates very well about his trip to Iran for VOC News.
Mr. Hamraz tells about his experience like this:
“It was six o’clock in the autumn season when we left and it was dark. Some families were with us on the way of smuggling with their small children.
We turned towards the plain and passed the deserts covered with flowing sand with visible and invisible lowlands and heights. We were walking in the dark of the night and staring at our feet with our eyes out of sockets; so that we don’t fall down and get lost. But still sometimes we fell on the ground and the backpacks were another nuisance in addition to the loose, low and high sand. Seven and ten-year-old children also accompanied us with their small steps on this way.
One of the factors that make the smuggling route more dangerous is the presence of small passengers. We have heard many children who are left behind from their families.
He adds:
Like all other people, I was only aware of not falling, not lagging behind and reaching the destination. After a while, I lost my friends in the crowd and in that darkness. I followed them in the track of the first people of the group who were in the same place. I slowed my pace and watched both sides of me with wide eyes until I saw them at the end of the line. One of them was hugging a little boy.
I asked and he said that no one is sad for the families and that they are just taking care of themselves and that’s it. Come and help. He gave that child in my arms without delay. I hugged him and he hugged my neck tightly and put his head on my right shoulder. His name was Ali and he was 4 years old. Anger squeezed my throat and most of the time I saw his mother worried about him and looking for him wandering among people and worried. I showed him and said that we will take a few people with us until we reach the border and don’t worry. My friends said that if we cross the border, we should cross with this boy, and if we don’t, we should not cross at all. I accepted and we took it in turn and hugged.
In the middle of the road, we noticed that the father of this boy took an eight-year-old child by his hand and was walking, pulling him with his long steps. And a little later, we found out that his mother was holding a two-month-old baby in her arms.
Throughout the smuggling route, that man only followed the boy, and that woman sometimes hugged the two-month-old child and sometimes the 4-year-old boy (Ali). Sometimes the child was taken by one and sometimes the boy was taken by the other. There I understood what it means to be a woman and what it is like to be a mother.
At that time, after several nights of walking, many young men and children were unable to get up and walk, but that mother sometimes hugged this boy and sometimes that other boy and walked step by step. During these few days and nights, that man was only a hostage of that ten-year-old boy who had sworn to walk with his feet and not hug him. One of our comrades, who couldn’t get up himself, put him on his shoulder during the eight-hour journey so that he would be a little more comfortable.
That woman was a symbol and a model of dedication. I wish that being a woman would be a symbol and role model in such matters rather than being a man and having masculinity.
Mohammad Azar Azarman