Afghanistan, Amina and the other women: do we remember them?

Now Omulbanin lives in a small town near Benevento together with his two sisters. Parents were unable to leave. “It’s terrible, we can’t live here without them”, he writes me on WhatsApp. Then an audio message: “Please help us get them back here. This pain is too great ». With her sister, Omulbanin tells that she has not yet been able to start her Italian lessons, that she feels suspended in a condition that she does not know how to manage. To reach the neighboring village, they have two bicycles that the community has made available to them. “But what we would like is to resume our studies and know that our family will be able to reunite with us here in Italy”.

With the latest agreement signed at the Viminale (between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Interior, the Community of Sant’Egidio, the Federation of Evangelical Churches, the Episcopal Conference, the Waldensian Table, Inmp, Unhcr, Arci), Italy has committed to welcoming another 1,200 people fleeing Afghanistan, through the activation of humanitarian corridors from Iran and Pakistan. Departures are scheduled for next year. «In Afghanistan I was about to become an English teacher and now I would like to resume that path, work and help my sisters to continue their studies. But more than anything else, I pray that my parents are well and can get on that plane. ” They hear each day with video calls, when the connection allows. “Now they have moved to a small village in the provinces hoping to be safe. But they have nothing left. Food costs a lot and people are starving ”. The United Nations reiterated this, calling the Afghan one “the worst humanitarian crisis ever seen”.

After the first hundred days of the Taliban takeover, the country is exhausted. “We are here, but the mind is always with our father and our mother. If their phone doesn’t work for a day, we think the worst has happened “. From Puglia, I meet Huma in Rome. She arrived in Italy at the end of August thanks to the mediation of the Pangea Onlus Foundation with which she worked in Kabul. “I grew up in the Pangea offices. With them my mother had started her own small tailor’s shop thanks to microcredit and as an adult I decided to work with them ». Huma took care of assisting women victims of violence, of helping and supporting them in the path of autonomy. “When the Taliban arrived, we burned all the documents concerning these women to protect them. It was the most painful thing in my life. ” Now Huma lives in Puglia with his mother. She started studying Italian and hopes to be able to start helping the women of her country again soon. “We were lucky. We need to be strong and take this new opportunity. Even if it hurts to know that we have lost everything we had before: our loved ones, our history, our country “. As Huma and I talk, Omulbanin sends me a message. There is a picture of him smiling for the first time. It has a nice colored veil and a light rimmel on the eyes. He writes in Italian and tells me he would like to come and see me in Rome. She would like to see the city, don’t think for one day at least … I promise you we will.

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