Pakistan's Parsi community shrinks as youth make ‘difficult decision' to migrate
From a gated community for her Zoroastrian faith in Pakistan's megacity Karachi, Elisha Amra, 22, has waved goodbye to many friends migrating abroad as the ancient Parsi community dwindles.
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Soon the film student hopes to join them – becoming one more loss to Pakistan's ageing Zoroastrian Parsi people, a community who trace their roots back to Persian refugees from today's Iran more than a millennium ago.
'My plan is to go abroad,' Amra said, saying she wants to study for a master's degree in a country without the restrictions of a conservative Muslim-majority society.
'I want to be able to freely express myself', she added.
Elisha Amra shows a corner of her grandparents' home with photos of their prophet Zoroaster and ancestral family members, in a Karachi enclave reserved for Zoroastrians. Photo: AFP
Zoroastrianism, founded by the prophet Zarathustra, was the predominant religion of the ancient Persian empire, until the rise of Islam with the Arab conquests of the seventh century.
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