2 days ago
I fled the Taliban in a wheelbarrow when Kabul fell
I'm not fleeing, I tell myself. I don't flee anything.
But the truth is, if I stay, I might not be alive tomorrow – so here I stand at the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, with a rusty wheelbarrow as my getaway vehicle.
I'm wearing a long shalwar kameez – a traditional Afghan robe – a hat, and a beard that's taken me weeks to grow, so the men at the border will mistake me for Taliban fighters just like them.
Exhausted from reporting day and night on the war between the Taliban and Afghan forces, I force an outward appearance of calmness and confidence, trying to suppress the beating of my heart so I can pass through unnoticed.
In my sock is a wad of cash and strapped around my chest is the very item that, if found, would seal my fate: a passport with the word 'reporter' written in black ink.
It is now four years since I left Afghanistan and Kabul fell to the Taliban, knowing that staying could mean death for me and anyone else who worked as a journalist for the Western media.
I still remember the screams of children piercing the air as we stood, thousands of us, including mothers and babies, pressed against each other; the heat becoming unbearable.
Every so often, a cloud of dust would envelop me as Taliban fighters picked people off and beat them. As I was shoved along, a man with a wheelbarrow appeared.
'Do you want to cross?' he asked.
A few minutes later, I was folded into his wheelbarrow like contraband, about to be rolled past Taliban checkpoints under the pretext of being a patient too sick to walk – one of the ways to get into Pakistan.
This rusted vessel became my unlikely 'escape' route, smuggling me past Taliban fighters in the most audacious two-pound gamble of my life.
My smuggler's plan was simple – play to their humanity, if any remained.
The metal sides of the old green wheelbarrow blazed under the scorching sun, too searing to touch with my bare hands. As we pushed through the crowd, Taliban fighters loomed like spectres of death. Their eyes swept over us.
One wrong move, one suspicious glance, and this wheelbarrow would become my coffin.
But somehow, impossibly, we rolled past them.
The dust continued to swirl, the sun continued to burn, and somewhere behind us lay a hell I had left in the most unlikely vehicle imaginable.
I was now in Pakistan with no way to contact my editors in London after crossing, having gone more than 24 hours without food. I was worn down by sleepless weeks of war reporting and weighed down by worries about every part of my life – but not myself.
Here, I think I encountered the most unfriendly people on Earth. Exhausted, I walked for hours asking to borrow a phone so I could make a call, even offering cash. In the end, one man from my home country let me use his hotel's phone.
Finally, a lifeline to the West.
The war had reached my doorstep a week before my dash across the border, in Herat, a city in western Afghanistan.
I had initially refused to leave because I wanted to report on the scale of human suffering unfolding around me. The gunfire and deafening explosions ripped through the country, but on the morning of August 12, 2021, it sounded different – closer, final.
We had watched American B-52 bombers slice through the sky above us the night before, their engines a promise of salvation.
That morning, I had already reported the fall of nearly half the country. By now, I was telling London that the Taliban had encircled Kabul.
When shots and explosions drew closer, I decided to turn off my phone and leave my flat, which sat next to the provincial prison and government offices.
But it was too late.
Outside, rockets fell relentlessly. People ran in every direction seeking shelter while cars sped along the wrong side of the road.
In one corner, I saw a Taliban fighter firing as another held a chain of bullets for him. Death was everywhere.
I went to a friend's house in a safer part of the city and watched convoys of Taliban fighters flooding in through the window. I reported the fall of Herat, Helmand, and Kandahar that night.
Herat felt different the next day – all of Afghanistan still is from that day four years ago.
When I returned to my flat a few days later, I found shards of glass scattered everywhere – windows had been hit by several bullets, right next to where I used to sit and report.
My friends and I used to play cards at night there, go to a garden and swim in its pool and play cards, drive through the city in the evenings, go to a nearby park and play cards, and play cards again. We loved that.
Now, the lucky ones among us are scattered across the world, while those who stayed home are living through the trauma of no jobs, no money, and no future.
They no longer have the fun we used to have. One of them manages to flee every few months.
After my journey across the border, I made it to London, having been awarded the Foreign Office Chevening Scholarship to study for an MA in Journalism at the University of Kent.
But London was a far cry from the war that had ravaged Afghanistan.
Feeling safe, adopting British culture, and working at this newspaper telling people's stories from around the world, I feel fortunate.
But sometimes, without warning, a memory strikes like shrapnel.
An eight-year-old me, running through knee-deep snow, lungs burning as I chase a lumbering train throwing chunks of wood.
The scene is clear – dozens of us in an Iranian camp, racing after that train to gather fuel for warmth at our homes. I was born in Iran and spent some of my childhood in a muddy camp there.
I became a journalist to tell the stories of people the world rarely hears, such as those of us in that Iranian camp.
In Afghanistan, free journalism no longer exists, and one of my closest friends – an exceptional journalist – is now in a notorious Taliban prison.
I've never felt comfortable telling my story or becoming the story, but one of the reasons I agreed to write this was to mention Hamid, who has been tortured by the Taliban in Kabul for a whole year.
Around 10 years ago, on a freezing, snowy day, we went to a remote refugee camp by a mountain to report with another friend who is now in hiding after the Taliban repeatedly came after him.
On another occasion, we were distributing our student magazine at university. I offered a copy, the result of our week-long hard work, to a passing student. She didn't even look at it, and when she walked away, I was so frustrated I smashed the bundle on the ground – but quickly rushed to collect them before the wind could scatter them.
Hamid was watching, laughing, and said he would remind me of that moment when I won an international award for my reporting.
I stopped working for public recognition years ago, but knowing Hamid is in prison while I'm free to report drives me to keep doing what we all loved.
We wanted to report – that's why we decided to become journalists in a year when Afghanistan was the deadliest country for reporters. We were 150 people that year. There are just two of us still reporting.
We loved telling people's stories for a living, and we would excitedly tell each other what we were working on.
I have been reporting for over 10 years, eight of them with British newspapers, without taking a single day off.
When I report now, I feel I represent Hamid. I think of the six words written on my editor's desk at this newspaper and respect them, because I believe words have killed more people than bullets.
'Words are powerful. Choose them well.'
