Afghan in Portugal torn between gratitude for the rescue and anxiety for the family
“I don’t remember how long ago I arrived in Portugal, I’m still confused and perplexed by all this. And I have no idea what day [da semana] it’s today, whether it’s Monday, Tuesday, or Sunday, I’m very serious, I only think about my family, “said Ahmad Zaid.
Although he cannot remember the exact day, Ahmad Zaid recently arrived in Portugal, along with other Afghan citizens removed from the country by Portuguese military appearances after the Taliban took power.
For about two and a half years, studying as a translator for Portuguese and before that for American models, which made him and his family an immediate target for the Taliban, who more than once have been looking for him.
He remembers that “it was very difficult to get to the airport in Kabul” and that communication with the Portuguese measures was done only by whatsapp or by email. It is also recalled that he was warned by the Portuguese military not to have any documents with him because the “Taliban were looking for someone who had collaborated with international communications”.
“I ran away alone, I asked to remove my family as well, but what he told me at the time was that they only guaranteed my departure and that only later could I ask to bring my family,” he told Lusa.
With him he only brought a backpack and a change of clothes, he couldn’t even say goodbye to his father or mother, who he brought back together with two brothers and two sisters and who now desperately want to bring with him.
“They said, ‘Let’s keep our numbers, you keep yours and we’ll keep in touch, please don’t lose them,’ ” he said, recalling the conversation he had with his parents.
He knows where they are, but prefers not to talk too much, explaining that they are fine, but not safe because there is no guarantee of safety for those who are family members who worked with the coalition’s overloads.
“They [talibãs] you’re not going to leave the families, you’re going to kill the families because they say ‘you were traitors and your children were traitors, if you didn’t support your child, your child wouldn’t do that, you were your child’s support’. They’re going to take revenge on my family, I’m very worried about my family,” he says.
Ahmad said, on the other hand, that he is very grateful to Portugal for taking him out of Afghanistan and for the Portuguese authorities for giving him everything from food, clothing or accommodation, for the feeling of freedom and security, but his concern is only one and he even admits that as long as he is unable to bring a family to him, “he only has to live in emotional and psychological suffering”.
“I’ve talked to a lot of people, I’m available to take one meal out of three meals a day, I take one meal, but please bring my family, don’t feed me three times a day, take only one, but bring mine family please,” he pleads.
“It’s an excruciating situation,” he admits.
In between, it shows videos of recent actions by the Taliban, which through Facebook, and where, according to Ahmad, it is possible to see beheadings, hangings or dead people on the side of the road.
According to Ahmad Zaid, the Taliban targets everyone they work for as an Afghan security cadre, but also police, national security and interpreters, as the latter are “the eyes and ears of coalition policies”.
In Lusa, the director of the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) even admitted that the “greatest concern” of the Afghans who, like Ahmad, recently arrived in Portugal “is not so much with their immediate future, but with what is happening with their families and their relatives”.
“There is among them a feeling of deep gratitude for the rescue, but at the same time an enormous anxiety for the entire family that remained in Afghanistan and this is the greatest concern of these people,” said André Costa Jorge.
According to the official, the Portuguese government has already expressed its willingness to rescue these people, but defended that “it is important that the rescue can proceed very quickly”.
“Firstly because we remove people who are in danger of life, the information we have is that these people are in real danger of life, but also because the people who are here will not stabilize until they know that their families are safe,” he pointed out.
According to André Costa Jorge, 296 people with these conditions have already been identified and mapped, and they need to be removed from Afghanistan “as soon as possible”, either through safe-conduct, humanitarian visas or letters of invitation to guarantee their safe exit.
JRS has been, together with the Lisbon City Council, ensuring the functioning of refugee reception structures, not only providing social and psychological support or mobilizing volunteers and articulating with institutions that may come to host refugees. refugee families, namely Afghan.
André Costa Jorge said that “people arrived naturally very tired, emotionally exhausted”.
“They went through a lot, especially they left with the clothes on their backs, to save their lives, but [chegaram] with a deep sense of gratitude for what the Portuguese military did in the evacuation of Afghanistan, “he pointed out, generated that the Afghan citizens are” calm “and that they “believe that everything will be all right”.
Another institution that is working on welcoming Afghan citizens is the Portuguese Red Cross (CVP), which, together with the association Corações Com Coroa (CCC), made a humanitarian appeal and has, for about a month, a bank account for where the Portuguese can contribute monetarily, until the end of the year.
To Lusa, a CVP social action coordinator said that they had already raised around 40,000 euros and explained that the funds will be allocated to all refugees, regardless of nationality, although the ways in which this support will be implemented are still being defined. .
According to Joana Rodrigues, it is thought that a personalized plan will be made according to the specific needs of the refugee. The official pointed out that the CVP has 22 vacancies available for Afghan citizens that have not yet been filled.
The management of the fund will be done between the CVP and the CCC, which is why priority will be given to helping women and children.
Ahmad Zaid never tires of thanking him for all the help and support he has been given so far, and he repeats how much he wants to be able to reunite with his family, without which “life is meaningless”.
“The second wish is to go to a university in order to be someone in the future and help this country, which is my new country,” he said.