Many Afghans pack bags, hoping for chance to leave

Exodus empties country of many young people

KABUL, Afghanistan — As their flight to Islamabad was finally about to take off, Somaya took her husband Ali’s hand, lay her head back and closed her eyes. Tension had been building in her for weeks. Now it was happening: They were leaving Afghanistan, their homeland.

The couple had been trying to go ever since the Taliban took over in mid-August, for multiple reasons. Ali is journalist and Somaya a civil engineer who has worked on United Nations development programs. They worry how the Taliban will treat anyone with those jobs. Both are members of the mainly Shiite Hazara minority, which fears the Sunni militants.

Most important of all: Somaya is five months pregnant with their daughter, whom they’ve already named Negar.

“I will not allow my daughter to step in Afghanistan if the Taliban are in charge,” Somaya told the Associated Press on the flight with them. Like others leaving or trying to leave, the couple asked that their full names not be used for their protection. They don’t know if they’ll ever return.

Ask almost anyone in the Afghan capital what they want now that the Taliban are in power, and the answer is the same: They want to leave. It’s the same at every level of society, in the local market, in a barbershop, at Kabul University, at a camp of displaced people. At a restaurant once popular with businessmen and upper-class teens, the waiter lists the countries to which he has applied for visas.

Some say their lives are in danger because of links with the ousted government or with Western organizations. Others say their way of life cannot endure under the hard-line Taliban, notorious for their restrictions on women, on civil liberties and their harsh interpretation of Islamic law. Some are not as concerned with the Taliban themselves but fear that under them, an already collapsing economy will utterly crash.

Tens of thousands of people were evacuated by the United States and its allies in the frantic days between the Aug. 15 Taliban takeover and the official end of the evacuation Aug. 30. After that wave, the numbers slowed, leaving many who want to leave but are struggling to find a way out. Some don’t have the money for travel, others don’t have passports, and the Afghan passport offices reopened only recently.

The exodus is emptying Afghanistan of many of its young people who had hoped to help build their homeland.

“I was raised with one dream, that I study hard and be someone, and I’d come back to this country and help,” said Popal, a 27-yearold engineer.

“With this sudden collapse, every dream is shattered. … We lose everything living here.”

When Popal was 5 years old, his father sent him to Britain with relatives to get an education. Growing up, Popal worked lowskill jobs, sending money back to his family, while studying engineering. He eventually gained British citizenship and worked in the nuclear sector.

A few weeks before the Taliban takeover, Popal returned to Afghanistan in hopes of getting his family out. His father once worked at a military base in Logar Province, where his mother was a teacher. His sisters have been studying medicine in Kabul.

The recent weeks have been tumultuous. His family’s home in Logar was destroyed by the Taliban, and they moved to Kabul. They believe it was because they refused to give information to relatives who are linked to the Taliban. One of his sisters went missing as she commuted between Kabul and Logar and has not been heard from in weeks. The family fears it could be connected to warnings they received from relatives to stop the daughters from studies, Popal told the AP.

Popal has been in contact for weeks with British officials trying to arrange evacuations. But he said they told him he could not bring his parents and siblings. In early October, Popal managed to get out to Iran. Complaining that he’s had no help from the British Foreign Office, he is making his way back to Britain, where he will try to find a way to bring out his family.

The British Foreign Office said in a statement that it is working to ensure British nationals in Afghanistan are able to leave.

A former adviser to a senior Cabinet minister in Afghanistan’s ousted government said he was searching for a way out. The decision came after years of sticking it out through mounting violence.