Update on Sediq’s family in Afghanistan
- Melissa Herrera: Not Waiting for Friday
- March 3, 2022
- 957
I have been watching the terrible war unfolding in Ukraine, gathering bits of info and stories like purple bruises that spread on skin, sore to the touch. I’ve had many people reach out to me through this and ask for updates on my son-in-law and his family in Afghanistan. There is too much trauma in the world, and each new horror is filed away in our brains until it becomes too much. What do we do? What can we say?
Selena and Sediq moved to Harrisonburg, Virginia last November, where she started a full-time job with Church World Service resettling refugees. She is hands deep in the muddy mire, finding apartments for displaced folks that have arrived here and making sure they have food and pans to cook it in, a bed to sleep in, a blanket for warmth. She sees this end of it, that final leg, and it can be a brutal time full of emotion. Sediq recently gained permanent residence in the United States after almost a year’s wait — a celebration for sure.
But as all hell breaks in Kyiv, the Taliban is resuming its brutal practices. They are methodically going door to door in each district of Kabul and searching each home for evidence of anyone working or having worked with the Afghan army. And Sediq’s dad did work for the Afghan army.
“I told my dad to burn his uniform, the one he used when he worked with the army,” Sediq said. “He burned them already. I have the video. They don’t leave their house.”
Sediq said it’s being reported in the neighborhood that his family lives and that at least 10 Taliban members come to each house when they search. Doors are kicked in, and the house is turned upside down as they search for the evidence they seek. The inhabitants of each home are afraid and worried they’ll use whatever they want to and call it incriminating. No one knows at what time they’ll show up and demand to come in.
“Maybe tomorrow they’ll come, maybe today,” Sediq said. “We only know that they’re close to our neighborhood and are coming to every house. We don’t know when they’ll come. I am afraid for my family.”
When the U.S. military left the region back in August, the plan was for his family to find an airlift out before Kabul fell to the Taliban. They were ready to go to the airport when a suicide bomber set off a bomb, killing 170 Afghans and 13 Americans. The bomb went off at the very gate into the airport his family had been directed to go to. They considered a dangerous ride through the mountains to take a chance at crossing over a land border into Tajikistan but decided at the time to stay where they were. Decisions made during upheaval can come at a heavy cost, and right now the only way out would be having someone smuggle them.
The world turns on its axis as people in power make decisions that alter the lives of others. There is horror and fear around the globe as we struggle to rise from a pandemic that’s taken so many lives. Seeing more people die needlessly in Ukraine because of one man’s wish for all-consuming power makes my stomach churn in disbelief. Hearing Sediq’s family is in immediate danger from another group that seeks endless power drops me to my knees.
It’s OK to struggle with how this information makes us feel. It’s OK to not know what to say, to let the words die on your tongue, to utter nameless prayers and close our eyes in helpless solidarity. As I write this on a Tuesday afternoon, Sediq’s family is OK — the Taliban has not yet come to their home. But we don’t know what tomorrow will bring.
“Hopefully, they will be OK,” Sediq said. “Thank you to everyone asking about them. Every day I pray for them and my country.”
Melissa Herrera is a columnist, published author and drinker of too many coffees. You can find her book, “TOÑO LIVES,” at www.tinyurl.com/Tonolives or buy one from her in person (because all authors have boxes of their own novel). For inquiries or to purchase, email her at junk babe68@gmail.com.