Too late for her daughter
Najia Zewari had been trying to reunite with her husband and two young children in war-torn Afghanistan for four years. Through messaging apps on her phone, she stayed connected to them as she created a new life in East York.
But her attempts to bring her family to Canada were too late for her daughter, who caught pneumonia. Unable to get proper medical care, the 12-year-old died in Kabul.
“I couldn’t see her. She got sick and her mother wasn’t with her,” Zewari said, her voice strained.
Zewari couldn’t leave Canada to go to her funeral either.
“This is the impact of war on people,” she said. “One dies with a bomb, with suicide attack, with other things, and my daughter is victim of immigration.”
She tries to hide the tears that sit on the edges of her eyes with a forced smile — she can’t talk about the little girl’s name or what she was like. It’s too difficult, she says.
In the past 30 years, Afghan refugees have consistently streamed into Canada, more so than any other country, including Syria. A total of 37,265 Afghans have arrived since 1991.
The Star spoke to three generations of Afghan-Canadian refugees who have fled during the Soviet-led war beginning in 1979 and during the ongoing U.S.-led war against the Taliban that began in 2001. Numbers of Afghan refugees are expected to grow as militant violence increases and aid groups slowly withdraw from the country.
As the war and its players have dramatically shifted over the decades, the process to seek safety as an Afghan refugee has changed — from a relatively simple process in the ’80s and ’90s to a more arduous system today.
Zewari, 52, came to Canada in 2013 with her eldest daughter. Her application to become a Canadian citizen is still being processed.
The situation in the country in 2013 was tense, as the war continued despite U.S. troops planning to withdraw.
The presidential elections were scheduled in 2014, prompting fears of civil unrest. The country was also targeted by drone warfare and, once again, on the international emergency watch list.
In August, her son and husband finally arrived and the family was reunited.
During the wait in Canada, she has kept herself busy, she said.
Earlier this year, she created an organization promoting peace and unity called Global Woman Network — a safe forum for female refugees and immigrants to share their stories and get support. Many women, like her, she said, have been waiting to see their families for months — often years.
“Most of them are going through a lot of depression and a lot of worries,” she said. “They are dying to see their family members day and night because of the slow process of immigration.”
On the side, Zewari has started working on a book about the women’s rights movement in Afghanistan and obtained a college diploma in business administration at the Academy of Learning in Toronto.
Books have always been her safety net. As a young girl in Afghanistan, she’d frequently take a15-minute bus ride to her local library in Kabul, where the rows of books had a calming effect on her.
Sitting at the Toronto Reference Library, it reminds her of the little library with stone floors that is now half a world away.
“Reading was part of our culture,” she said. “We picked books from the library, rushed to borrow books from friends. It was sort of a lifestyle we had as a child.”
In her East York home, she has some of the books from Afghanistan — her favourite Farsi and Dari literature.
She has the same vibrant red carpets that lie in most Afghan homes covering her wooden floors.
More important for her are the photos she took over the years and her accomplishments as a refugee, as a United Nations worker for UN Women Afghanistan where she worked for10 years as a manager and adviser, as a mine awareness instructor to teach returning refugees about how to avoid the mines littered across the country, and as a leader of a women’s rights organization in Afghanistan.
Someday, she’ll put the photos in a book, she said, for future generations to see the great beauty of Afghanistan and the difficulties the country has faced.
“My grandchildren will maybe think differently,” she said, praying that the generations that have only seen war in Afghanistan, may someday see peace.
For Zewari, peace came this summer when her husband and son landed at Pearson airport. Their arrival was delayed by a few minutes. Zewari’s hands trembled as she held dozens of large, multicoloured bouquets of flowers. The waiting had become painful. She took them to their new home. “I felt I got everything, that I don’t need anything else,” she said.
“This long waiting time for reunification is the worst experience an individual can have,” she said.
“For me, it’s the worst one, out of everything. In my life, especially if you lose your child and cannot see her.”
“This long waiting time for reunification is the worst experience an individual can have.” NAJIA ZEWARI AFGHAN REFUGEE