"Refugees"- Surviving on Hope

This was my entry for the Commonwealth Essay Competition-2008, which won a national commendation award.It is the story Of An Afghani Refugee in Pakistan.


Asfand stood up and trailed his eyes over the vast expanse of barren land searching for any left out willow of dry grass. In the extreme heat of the camp, vegetation was non-existent, what remained was dried, parched grass which the refugees used as fuel for cooking, and even that was turning scarce.
His mind went down memory lane to the beautiful mountains of his homeland, Afghanistan. He remembered a poem by the great Pashto poet Amir Hamza Khan Shinwari, which he had once heard at an Urs in his village.

“I am again invited by the Raqib It may only be a trap for revenge. Your dark eyes are bent on my heart The Moors are again poised for storming the Kaaba.”

Asfand, or rather Asfandyar Mohmand, is a 13-year-old Pashtun from Jalalabad, in Nangarhar province of Afghanistan who is now living as a refugee in the Kotkai refugee camp of Pakistan. He and his family, consisting of his parents and three younger sisters, are among the thousands who abandoned their land and houses in Afghanistan during the horrific advent of the Taliban in 1996 only to live a life of disgust as a refugee.
He only had vague memories of the frozen days and night when his kinsmen had crossed over the Khyber Pass and infiltrated into Pakistan. He remembered as how they had been ambushed by the Taliban soldiers at every point, who looted and tortured the refugees every time. He also remembered as how during the journey a 12-day-old girl had died due to the biting cold. They had to bury her in the mountains. At that time he was too young to understand why they were running.

After entering Pakistan they had first settled in the refugee camp of Jalozai, joining the thousands other Afghani refugees already living there since 1979. Jalozai, near the city of Peshawar, is a squalid, depressing place with hopelessness in the air. Asfand had immediately disliked it. He can still remember the first sight of the camp.
Numerous cloth and plastic tents lay scattered all over in the dust. In the absence of proper walls many had erected extensions outside their tent to earmark their place. There were a lot of children around wearing ragged clothes thick with dust playing Buzul Bazi, their hair were brittle and as blonde as the soil. The little ones puking and with running noses perched atop their older siblings. Everywhere there loitered identical figures, women dressed in the customary blue Burqas. Many had set up temporary kitchens consisting of a single battered steel vessel over an earthen stove. There was a strong stench in the air, presumably of human faeces and decaying garbage.
‘Surely’, Asfand had wondered at that time, ‘his family isn’t going to live here. They couldn’t have left their comfortable village for this’. His fears were soon confirmed after a few days and he had realized that this was now their abode.
Jalozai turned out to be more of a nightmare. It was extremely deplorable and inhuman. There was no water supply or sanitation. Latrine pits lay everywhere with oodles of flies circling over them. Scorpions treaded normally among people.
There was no choice for food except roots and grass and at some fortunate times, potatoes. Once a month food trucks would come to deliver stale bread and grain but the proportion was extremely insufficient for the population. People would attack the supplies like animals and only a few lucky ones could scrap off something. The policemen who brought the truck would beat them mercilessly with their canes every time they tried to ask for more, not even sparing the women and children. Many times scuffles broke out among the people over this and once a man got killed. Asfand’s father had also broken his wrist once in such a fight. Some distributors even took bribes from some families to supply food to them first. There was a constant drought and the water-tanker would only come once a week and many times after a month. Some men had found jobs in the city by working as cheap labour. Asfand’s father had also started working as a sweeper in the city.

In summers it was suffocatingly hot touching 110 degrees and more, in winters it was deathly cold. There were a lot of diseases around, most people suffered from measles and tuberculosis, and many people died. The sick were generally left alone by his family under the fear of catching his disease. Sometimes medical aid trucks from the UNHCR would come to treat people. But even the doctors acted as if this was just a formality and went away as soon as they had come.
And then there was the time when Asfand’s mother had given birth to his younger brother unattended and remained unconscious for days only to wake up and find that out of weakness she couldn’t produce milk for the baby. Asfand couldn’t imagine what type of future his younger brother would have, in fact he was even uncertain about his future.

Three years had passed and still he couldn’t come to terms with his life at Jalozai. Many times he dreamed of his village in Jalalabad, his house, his friends, the Madarassa where he learnt to read, the mosque where he went to pray, the fields where his father toiled, the Buzkashi matches he would eagerly watch, the kite that he once chased and won..……….. Asfand often cried himself to sleep letting his tears fall and dry on the mound of soil that he used as a pillow.

His life had come to a stand still.

One day bearded men had come and moved around the people talking about religion and something that they called Jihad. They had taken away teenagers and young men telling them that this was the only way they could earn adequately for their families. Since then they were never seen again. Asfand later learned for what actual purpose they had gone.

The nightmare grew even worse, a lot of tension had persisted hitherto between the various communities of the camp namely the Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks. The tension broke into a full-blown war when a Hazara mother had stolen a few pieces of bread from her Pashtun neighbour to feed her 1-year-old hungry baby. This resulted in a quarrel and soon the men turned violent and brought out their weapons. 12 people were killed and many were injured. Asfand couldn’t understand as to why these stupid people would fight instead of cooperating to improve their lives. The tension grew even more after that and many quarrels broke out now and then. It wasn’t until the authorities, which were till now hiding, stepped in.
It was decided that the Pashtuns would be sent to a new camp at Kotkai. This decision was mainly taken to reduce the massive population that had accumulated in Jalozai.

For once Asfand was happy. A tingle of hope, which was devoid daylight for days, rose up inside him. He could picture a better life for himself. Maybe they will get walled rooms, even toilets and taps. Even his long old desire to go to a proper school returned to him.
Around 3000 refugees, all of them Pashtuns, were moving there. His family also decided to take the UNHCR bus ride to Kotkai. Most of the refugees were still not fully willing as migrating would mean setting up everything again and this meant more problems. Their luggage, which consisted of whatever few items they had collected during their stay in Jalozai, was stacked over the bus.
During the ride Asfand had realized that even though Jalozai was dreadful, it had become their home and now he was leaving this new home too. He wondered whether he was destined to change homes throughout his life. On reaching Kotkai his family discovered that they had misplaced a lot of their belongings. But this was the last thing on Asfand’s mind as he gazed over the new camp. It wasn’t as good as he had anticipated but better then Jalozai.


Asfand’s mind suddenly wheeled back to the present. Somebody was calling out to him-“Wror! Huree !! (Brother! There!!)” It was his younger sister Mahnur. She was standing there with her younger sisters holding a broken wheelbarrow with their baby brother inside it along with a lot of plastic bottles. Asfand realized that Mahnur was pointing at something.
He looked closely at the place where she was pointing and saw another piece of dried grass. He went on to uproot it and put it in his sack. He returned to his sisters. Aimal, his baby brother looked at him with his Kohl laden eyes and smiled broadly. “Laala” he said, he had started to speak since a few months. Asfand smiled back and took away the small plastic bottle Aimal was chewing upon and kept it back in the barrow. Once a month they would go on a search around the camp looking for containers in which they could store water. He and his siblings finally returned to their tent.
Asfand could see smoke rising from outside his tent, accompanied by a nice smell. He could guess that his mother was cooking something good.

Life at Kotkai is much more comfortable than Jalozai. Here the refugees have bigger tents, more water supply and covered toilets. There are less diseases and the stench is not even that horrible. There is even more supply from food trucks and Asfand had got a chance to taste real vegetables, something he hadn’t done since he came to Pakistan. However, he realized with sorrow, that he had not tasted meat yet. Though his hopes of a proper school were dashed after coming here, Asfand has joined the local Madarassa, not minding the long distance he would have to cover everyday. He even has a few notebooks, and apart from the prayer books, which were given to him at the Madarassa, he had bought a small book for learning the English alphabet. He could now recognize the letters on the signboards and billboards that he saw whenever he visited the city. He had tried to talk his parents into sending his sisters to the Madarassa as well, but they had sternly denied.

Today his mother was cooking pulses. After eating potatoes for a whole week this was a relief, even though she cooked them without any spices. He handed her the dried grass he had collected.
”Palarr! Palarr! (Father! Father!)”- Aimal was shouting. His father had returned home. After moving to Kotkai Asfand’s father had to leave his sweeper job. Now he worked as a labourer at a construction site in the nearby town of Bushahra.
The family sat down to dinner and chatted over the day’s events. Asfand remained silent and looked at their happy faces. After coming to Pakistan this was the first time he had seen such a smile on their faces. Even if things were still not the same as they were in Afghanistan, they had improved significantly from the first time they had come here. At least something is better then nothing.
Asfand goes out of his tent. It’s night time now. The sky has been cloudy all day along.
He hopes it wouldn’t rain, as the water would flood through the tent.

He hopes …that the food truck that will come tomorrow would bring meat to them.

He hopes .…. that his father would be able to save more so that they can raise solid walls around their tent one day.

He hopes…….. that he had more money to buy a new English book one day.

He hopes………….. that, unlike him, Aimal would be able to go to a proper school one day.

He hopes ……………………that he would return to Afghanistan one day…






WRITERS NOTE-

The story told above is fiction inspired by reality. The character of Asfand is my own invention and bears no resemblance to any real person. However most of the incidents described in the story, such as the exodus of refugees from Afghanistan in 1996, the outrageous conditions of the camps, the suffering of the refugees, the war between the communities and the relocation of the refugees to a new camp are entirely true. Also, the camps of Jalozai and Kotkai, and the other places named exist in actual and bear indication to the events portrayed.
This story doesn’t aims to achieve any politically motivated aim or raise hatred against any administration.
I sincerely wish that the story succeeded to evoke consideration and compassion in your hearts for the numerous people like Asfand who till now lie in ‘hope’.


- Yasin Choudhary
January 5, 2008