Afghan refugee flees for safety, ready to look toward future
On the day in August when Taliban forces entered Kabul, Afghanistan, Durkhshan, a 21-year-old journalist, hid in her bedroom.
She couldn’t be in the streets among the soldiers, and she couldn’t leave the country because she had no official documents.
“I did not even dare to look from the window to see who’s on the road,” said Durkhshan, who recently settled in Lansing. “That was the fear of the Taliban.”
Durkhshan was in greater danger than many because of her role in the media. Many reporters, including some of Durkhshan’s colleagues, had been killed by bombs or beaten. The Taliban saw the media as un-Islamic, she said, and believed she and her colleagues normalized dangerous ideas.
“I was so sad, and the rest is history,” she said. “I knew that I couldn’t stay anymore.”
Now, after months of upheaval, Durkhshan is looking to build a new future in Lansing.
“I am thankful, too,” she said. “Now that I am safe, I can share my story with other people.”
Michigan has committed to welcoming 1,600 Afghan refugees by the end of the year, according to the Office of Global Michigan, part of the Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity.
Nearly 300 people had been settled within the state as of last month, and more than 100 have settled in the Greater Lansing area.
The violence and uncertainty of the past year in Afghanistan have sparked a new call to action to support refugees, Office of Global Michigan Director Poppy Hernandez said.
“To truly support and protect these Afghan men, women and children as they flee from violence and political persecution takes a village,” Hernandez said. “Here in Michigan, we’re proud to know our village was able to rise to the challenge.”
Durkhshan was interviewed by the Lansing State Journal with the help of Paiman Zamani, a translator with the Afghan Association of Michigan. The interview was conducted in English and Farsi.
For her safety, Durkhshan’s last name is not being published.
Kabul: ‘A home to everybody’
Durkhshan loved growing up in Kabul.
Located in the eastern part of the country, Kabul is the largest city in Afghanistan and serves as its cultural, economic and political capital.
The Taliban controlled the city from 1996 until 2001, around the time Durkhshan was born, when it was ousted by U.S. forces in the weeks following the Sept. 11 attacks. The militant group never disappeared, though, and since 2014 had made steady gains in power throughout Afghanistan.
But Kabul was different, Durkhshan said. People felt safe there.
“Kabul was like a home to everybody,” she said.
Reporting on the Taliban
It wasn’t until Durkhshan started working as a reporter that she took real notice the war between U.S. and Afghan forces and the Taliban.
When she was 16, Durkhshan heard about an opportunity to work as a reporter for 1TV, a privately owned media company in Kabul. With the support of her family, she took a training course and got hired by the station. She was young, but she wanted to tell people what was happening in her country.
The news was rarely good. Much of the reporting she did was about where people had been attacked and how many people had been killed.
“Because of the daily news, you become so frustrated about your life,” she said. “You’re thinking if you die, then that’s easy. OK, you die, that’s it.”
Young people like her were especially frustrated, she said. “You are spending this precious life in this situation,” she said. “But it is what it is.”
Durkhshan worked as a journalist for five years, eventually moving to a job with BBC Radio.
At the beginning of 2020, she had an opportunity to travel to Germany for work. Her sister and brother-in-law begged her to move there permanently, but she didn’t want to start her life over in a new country.
Instead, Durkhshan left journalism and got a job working for the Afghan government in communications. She wanted to become a leader in her country.
“Maybe I am a deputy minister, or a minister here,” she said. As Durkhshan settled into her new job, she tracked the Taliban’s movements across the country. There was nothing she could do but hope the soldiers wouldn’t reach Kabul.
Kabul falls
Most mornings, Durkhshan woke up early for her job, but on the morning of Aug. 15, 2021, she was running late.
When she finally got to work, her supervisor told her to go home. The Taliban was expected to reach Kabul that day, and only men were working. It would be dangerous for Durkhshan to be there.
Instead of going home herself, Durkhshan’s father walked 40 minutes to pick her up.
“He was so frightened at that time,” she said.
As the government collapsed, many Afghans feared a violent return of Taliban rule, despite the group’s pledges to respect the rights of women and minority communities and provide amnesty for those who supported U.S. efforts.
At first, Durkhshan hoped the Taliban’s control would be temporary. Maybe, she thought, there would be a compromise with the Afghan government or the Americans would work something out.
But when she learned the U.S. and several other countries had evacuated diplomats from their embassies, she gave up that hope.
Durkhshan contacted the British Consulate and asked if the United Kingdom could get her out of the country, since she had worked for the BBC. Without a British passport, officials told her they couldn’t help.
On Aug. 24, the Taliban set a deadline for all foreign evacuations from Afghanistan. Durkhshan had a week to get out.
Her only remaining option was the Kabul airport.
From Afghanistan to America
During the next seven days, Durkhshan and her family tried to leave Afghanistan three times.
The first day, they waited at the airport gate for 10 hours while Taliban forces shot volleys of rifle fire into the air.
“At the beginning, we were lowering down our heads, and then we got used to it and we would not care anymore,” she said.
During their second attempt to evacuate, a family member was shot in the lip.
On the final night of the Taliban’s deadline, Durkhshan and her relatives tried one more time. Finally, carrying little more than her paperwork from 1TV and the BBC, Durkhshan was waved through the gate.
Durkhshan had never considered going to America, but when she was given a bracelet that designated her as an evacuee to the United States, she was grateful.
“That really amazed (me) ... I got the American one,” she said.
Separated from her family, Durkhshan spent 40 days at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany — an experience so difficult she said she “does not count” those days as part of her life.
“Until that time (I) was not feeling loneliness,” she said. “But once we got separated, there was nobody with me.”
When she arrived in the United State, she intended to meet family in Washington State, but instead picked Lansing for its shorter waiting list. She was ready to start anew.
Starting over
Durkhshan arrived in Lansing in mid-November and has been getting acclimated to the area.
Now that the danger is past, Durkhshan is facing the difficult task of starting her life over.
“The hardest thing is that back in Afghanistan (I) studied a lot. (I) was part of the media for a couple of years,” she said. “And now in America, (I) have to start from zero, which is the hardest thing.”
That’s the case for many Afghans, Durkhshan said, who had to leave behind everything they’ve ever known.
“We were really facing the threat,” she said. “Otherwise, we would not be here. Some (Afghans) left their children, their lives, because they are in danger.”
She expressed particular gratitude to the U.S. soldiers who got her out of Afghanistan.
“I want to send a thank you to all the veterans,” she said. “They are really good people, and I admire them.”
Lansing serves as a national model
Lansing has been a resettlement city since the late 1970s. For the last four decades, the city has taken in an average of 500 people a year as part of the federal resettlement program.
Following the United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan, President Joe Biden directed the Department of Homeland Security to support and resettle vulnerable Afghans in the United States, investing $6.3 billion at the federal level.
Since August, 17,000 Afghans have been resettled, and just over 50,000 are living on eight U.S. military bases across the country.
As the Biden Administration ramps up resettlement efforts, it’s looking to Lansing as a model for the rest of the country.
Last month, Jack Markell, White House Coordinator for “Operation Allies Welcome” met with local leaders to discuss what they’ve learned about supporting refugees. He recognized the Greater Lansing area as a national leader because of cooperation between agencies here and bipartisan support for resettlement at the state and local levels.
“We keep hearing not only about the political support but about the competence of what’s going on on the ground, so that’s a pretty good combination,” he said.
In Lansing, St. Vincent Catholic Charities is the federally designated resettlement agency.
Together with volunteers, St. Vincent provides refugees with permanent housing, employment opportunities and cultural orientation. The agency also provides furniture, household and personal hygiene items, transportation and assistance for health screenings and English and financial literacy classes.
St. Vincent’s work is supported by other local organizations, including the Refugee Development Center, the Afghan Association of Michigan and even Lansing School District.
“We work hand-in-glove with the refugee services to make sure that they’re getting housing, make sure that they’re getting food,” Lansing Superintendent Ben Shuldiner said. “What we’re doing here with Afghan refugees is what we do for anybody from any place that wants to come here.”
The kindness of strangers helps, too. Recently, a group of business owners and residents in Lansing’s Old Town pitched in to buy a skateboard and clothes for one refugee, a young woman who thought she’d have to leave her passion behind in Afghanistan.
“Everyone has been so generous and so nice,” said Jamie Schriner, a resident who helped coordinate the donation. “I’m thankful for friends who really stepped up to make this happen.”
That support is important for people fleeing traumatic situations, said Yousuf Sultani, president of the Afghan Association of Michigan.
“They want to start moving forward, but they are also traumatized,” he said. “We’re doing our best to help them.”
Looking to the future
Since her arrival, Durkhshan said she’s felt supported. From the airport gate in Kabul to her temporary housing in Lansing, she’s been treated with kindness and respect.
After months of upheaval and uncertainty, she’s looking forward to building stability. Her first priority is getting into permanent housing, and she’s eager to improve her English and begin working.
She also wants to save up and help her family move to the United States. They made it out of Afghanistan and are safe, but they aren’t together.
“Although I’m safe physically, mentally, I’m somewhere else,” Durkhshan said.
Eventually, she wants to attend university to study international relations.
Though her life has taken a turn she never imagined, she’s ready to look to the future.