My name is Rahima. I am a 45-year-old woman whose life has been bound to war and displacement. I am originally from Badghis province, where my family has deep roots, but fate has carried me elsewhere. It has been exactly 20 days since I left my ancestral land for the city of Herat. In this exile, I have no shelter except my son-in-law’s house, where I live surrounded by grief and my orphaned children.
The story of my life, and of the men in my family joining the ranks of the Taliban, is afamiliar one. My husband had been with the Taliban since the first regime. In those days, we survived through agriculture. He worked on our land in Badghis, and our livelihood came from its harvest. At that time, the Taliban also supported him financially so that our household could manage more easily.
I was very young when I entered this life — I think I was perhaps 14 or 15 when my father gave me in marriage to this man. That was about 30 years ago. My husband had long been aligned with the Taliban and stayed with them, engaged in jihad, as he called it. Our first great sorrow began with my husband in the holy month of Ramadan nine years ago. I remember that day clearly. He left the house in the morning to fight in clashes between the former government and the Taliban in Badghis. By that same afternoon, I was told that he had been killed. The Taliban carried his body back to me. He was 50 years old when he finally lost his life.
In those days, my youngest son, who is now here beside me, was still wrapped in swaddling clothes. He never saw his father’s face.
Once they had grown, my sons followed their in their father’s path. They never went to school to receive a formal education; rather, they received religious lessons at madrasas. Under the influence of that environment, one after another, they stood with the Taliban.
My eldest son, Rahim Khan, was 25 when he was killed in the fighting six years ago. He left behind two wives. One returned to her father’s home, but the other remained with me, carrying her children and her grief. Two years later, my second son, Rostam Khan, was 22 when he also lost his life on the battlefield. One by one, the three breadwinners of my household were taken in the war against the former government, leaving us widowed and alone in this vast world.
Now I am part of an army of sorrow. Our family has 12 members, including the orphaned children left behind by my sons. These are the young ones left behind by my sons. In addition, one widow of my eldest son and the widow of my second son are under my care.
I myself have three young sons, born in the final years of my life with my husband. They are 13, 11, and 9. They are still too young to work as laborers or migrants, too young to provide for such a large household. I married one of my daughters off in Badghis. My other daughter is here in Herat, and for now we are living in her husband’s house.
The main reason we left Badghis for Herat was misery, hunger, and having nowhere to turn. As long as my husband and older sons were alive, we had someone to rely on. After they were killed, there was no one left to work our land or tend the fields. Then a merciless drought struck, and the soil no longer yielded crops. In Badghis, we had neither bread to eat nor a provider to secure food for us.
Out of sheer desperation, we packed what little we had and came to Herat. My young sons collect plastic and scraps from the garbage in the market that they sell for a few coins. Some nights they return with pieces of dry bread that they have found. Other times, my son-in-law, who is only a day labourer, buys bread for us.
How long can this situation continue? I have neither the strength to work, nor is there any work available for a woman such as myself.
The bitterest part of my story is that no one comes to ask about us, despite my husband and two sons sacrificing their lives for this system. The Emirate government has not given us any help. No one will write my name on the lists of aid organizations or humanitarian assistance. I am without protection.
Five months ago, I managed to explain my situation to the office of the governor of Badghis. “Go. When conditions improve in the future, we will help,” was all they said. I am left with these empty promises. I have placed my hope in God, knowing that no one is coming to rescue me in this world filled with abandonment.
I still keep an old registration card that was issued to my husband 25 years ago during the first Taliban period. Then, that card brought us assistance. Now no one in the Taliban ranks remembers us now that my husband has given his life and my sons lie beneath the soil.
That card is my only relic of days when we had a provider. Today it is a torn piece of paper, unable to help fight the hunger of my orphaned grandchildren. We remain at the door of my son-in-law’s house, each day passing between fear and fragile hope as our stomachs remain empty.
Rad Radan is the pseudonym of a freelance journalist in Afghanistan.
