Amina and I sit cross-legged on a traditional Afghan takht sipping green tea, the cool evening air of Kabul swirling around us as stars wink in the sky. Amina is beautiful; her story is not.
On the threshold of puberty when the Taliban marched into her Bamiyam village, she and her mother, two younger sisters, grandmother, various aunts and female cousins, were forced, at gunpoint, to bear witness as the invaders lined up all the men and boys of her extended family and one by one shot them in the back of the head
–snip– The small band of women and their offspring hid out in the rugged terrain for about three weeks before hunger drove them to travel northwards towards Bagram where, they prayed, other relatives would take them in. Six weeks later, they made it and, three months down the line, were evacuated by representatives of the Aga Khan Foundation and transported all the way south to Karachi in Pakistan where the women were provided work in a fish factory and girls like Amina were sent to school.
After approximately six years of life in Karachi, the family was given an opportunity to return to Afghanistan and they took it.
via Up north and personal: Behind the barricades – The Express Tribune.
Ismailimail 