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	Human Rights Defender

Letter from Kabul

Mahdi Ibrahimi is an asylum seeker sent to Nauru as part of the Australian government’s “Pacific Solution”. Mahdi has since returned to Afghanistan and it is our great privilege to print this edited version of a letter he sent to a friend in Melbourne.

Kabul, Afghanistan

27 January 2003

Salam Alakum and G’day...!

I am very much sorry to be so late to contact you and to let you know of my whereabouts.

I assume you have received my first fax on our first days in Kabul. It took me several days to get an address or have a place to stay. It is very difficult and expensive to stay in hotels in Kabul. It is my first time in Kabul. I am totally unfamiliar with the city and the ways of living here.

After some days in Kabul I discovered that my father was in Pakistan. In order to see him after almost 2 years I went to Pakistan. In my way to Quetta, the city where my father was, I and so many other Afghans were looted by the Pakistani police. The police stopped our bus in a remote desert and got us out of the bus. Checking our pockets and luggage, they took all of our money. As I resisted they started beating, slapping and kicking me. Then they forced me back into the bus and went away. It was a dark night and I could not identify the area, the police and why they looted us. Therefore, I could not complain and tell the exact story when I arrived in the city on the next day as I did not know the location.

Anyhow I have go through all these hardships and difficulties here in Kabul. And at the moment I am teaching English language at this private Educational Center which can hardly allow living from hand to mouth. I have lesser time to study and fewer facilities to work. Kabul is very much overpopulated and everything is very much expensive making many basic things inaccessible for most of its populations. It is very much insecure as well. No one feels secure at nights at the homes and days in the streets and roads. Here is always a fear existing in every one’s life - fear of rocket attacks from the mountains surrounding Kabul and fears of lootings and robberies at nights and on the days. A large number o Kabulis spend their whole nights guarding their streets and their houses. There are gangs of armed thieves who enter the houses in groups and take away everything.

This is the situation in Kabul. The security situation in the other provinces is much worse. Not only lootings and robberies are something usual everywhere but armed groups are competing with each other to gain more controls of the cities, villages and towns. So far three representatives of the transitional administration have been refused entry in my hometown Jaghoori. It is ruled by the armed groups controlling different parts of it.

More than half of the returnees, who were on our flight on the 16th of November last year have gone back into Iran or Pakistan seeing the current situation in Afghanistan insecure and difficult to bear. Many are scattered in the streets of Kabul with no job.

I am seeking to work with any aid agency working in Afghanistan. I am interested much in aid works. There are hundreds of thousands of Afghans languishing in the streets or in the ruined houses of Kabul without basic living facilities. There are masses of people in urgent need of help.

I have learnt many lessons during my time in Nauru. Now it is the time to put them in practice.

Yours Sincerely,

Mahdi Ibrahimi