People's Democracy

THE walk over the Hindu Kush mountains took two days and left Aniz Ullah’s feet blistered and bleeding. She led seven women and children on the 80-mile journey to escape the US and British air strikes on Afghanistan, her family carrying their entire belongings in two holdalls.

They are among the first wave of refugees to leave the country since the outbreak of war, in an exodus which is expected to number one million people. But now she has arrived in neighbouring Pakistan, Mrs Ullah and her family face a future every bit as uncertain as the life they have left behind.

"The bombs were landing less than half a mile from our home. It was the most terrifying experience of our lives," said the 45-year-old widow and grandmother, a qualified teacher and former police officer who was denied the right to work by the Taliban. Describing the first night of the bombing by US and British jets, she said: "Everyone in our village spent the night hiding in caves and crevices on the mountainside, waiting for morning to come, because we were too scared to sit in our homes. "After the second night of bombing, everyone who could afford to leave packed their belongings and set off."

Mrs Ullah put her youngest children Lamia, 15, and Shafullah, ten, on a donkey and her eldest daughter also gathered her three children together for the journey. They left the village of Kandooz to walk to the road leading to Jalalabad and the border town of Torkham where they spent a night sleeping by the side of the road. After being denied permission to cross the border, they got up at 5am for the long trek over the Hindu Kush mountain range, following a trail of other refugees who were using the isolated mountain route.

"It was very steep and there was no track for us to follow so it was very dangerous with the children," she recalled. "There were other people trying to cross the mountains and we followed their route and eventually we made it across. We only had two bags between us with a change of clothes. We had to leave everything else behind." The family is now being put up in a relative’s home, sharing a single room while they wait to see what happens in their home country. They have no blankets for their beds and no money or means of buying food.

Mrs Ullah is used to suffering. After 22 years of war, there are countless widows in Afghanistan and no-one has suffered more under the Taliban regime than women who do not have a husband or male relative to stand up for them. When her husband died ten years ago during the conflict with the Soviet Union, Mrs Ullah, a qualified maths teacher and former police inspector, tried to find work so she could feed her three children.

But when the Taliban seized power in 1994 and introduced a law banning women from working for a living, she was threatened with arrest for demanding a job. Mrs Ullah was also beaten in the street about her legs for not wearing the traditional burqa dress covering her body from head to toe as decreed by the Taliban. She has only managed to survive over the last seven years by taking weekly handouts from international aid agencies including the United Nations and Red Cross.

Five weeks ago, following the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, the deliveries stopped. "We have been living on help from our relatives - my late husband’s brother has been providing for us but he has his own family and it is very difficult for him," Mrs Ullah explained. "We have been waiting for the aid supplies to start up again but when the bombing started it was obvious it was going to be some time before that happened. Our village was hit four or five times on the first night, we think they were aiming for the local offices of the radio station.

"In the next village there were many children injured by a bomb, apparently about 20 of them were in hospital." Aid agencies believe more than one million refugees will attempt to cross into Pakistan in the wake of the US and British bombing as food supplies dry up in the country. So far the border has remained closed. Pakistan’s President Musharraf has indicated he does not want an influx of refugees to add to the two million Afghans already living in his country. Aid workers are attempting to set up camps which would take up to 10,000 refugees each in Pakistan but at the moment, most Afghans fleeing their country are staying with relatives or friends in existing camps and settlements. Mrs Ullah said she is attempting to secure aid supplies from the United Nations in Pakistan but has no idea how she can prove she is an Afghan refugee.

"We desperately need some blankets and some food but I don’t know where I can turn to for help. The bombing is destroying so many lives and it is difficult to see what is being achieved by it.

(Courtesy : The Scotsman October 15, 2001)