Taliban sparks fear

When Shakilla Naveed went to bed on Sunday night, she didn’t know the whereabouts of her two sisters and mother in Kabul, or their personal safety. The Uniting Care support worker was one of many in Shepparton’s Afghan community unable to sleep for fears of atrocities being inflicted by the Taliban as they took control of Afghanistan.

At the weekend, Taliban fighters marched on Afghanistan’s capital Kabul after seizing nearly all of the country in a matter of weeks. It followed the joint withdrawal of US and Australian troops from Afghanistan after a 20-year mission that cost the lives of 41 Australian soldiers.

“I spent the whole night just watching the news . . . my heart is crying and full of sadness,” Mrs Naveed said.

“My sister called me saying ‘everywhere outside is scary’, she was crying saying ‘what should we do?’ — and then the internet disconnected and I couldn’t contact them. “I’ve been speaking to people who just cry for hours on the phone, they don’t know what to do . . . and I can’t do anything to help them.”

Mrs Naveed and her husband, Abdullah, fled warfare in Afghanistan and spent several years in Pakistan with their small children before arriving in Australia as refugees. While in Pakistan, they visited Afghanistan just twice in 10 years because of fears of the Taliban.

Now unable to speak to her family in Kabul, Mrs Naveed is terrified for its safety as Hazaras — a historically persecuted ethnic minority. “My sisters are not even 21, they’re not married and they’re so scared the Taliban will take them,” Mrs Naveed said. “The last conversation I had with my mother she said, ‘Who knows what will happen tomorrow — maybe I will die’.

“She has seen what the Taliban have done . . . What do I say to my sisters? To my mother? What can I do for them? Nothing.”

Ethnic Council’s Afghanistani community development officer, Mr Naveed was acutely aware his family wasn’t the only one sick with worry. He said the takeover of Kabul was one of the “darkest and blackest” days in his birth country’s history. “No-one could sleep because of their families, because of their relatives and friends there,” he said.

Since Sunday, Mr Naveed has been overwhelmed by the number of phone calls, messages and even visits to his home he has had from people desperate for information or advice.

“They want to know a lot of things — they have many, many questions,” Mr Naveed said. “There is no answer.” Afghan Youth Association of Shepparton leader Mezhgan Alizadah said watching the conflict from afar was hardest for older generations.

A vocal advocate for the rights of Muslim women, Ms Alizadah said the Taliban this week erased the concept of women’s rights in her birth country, and young girls now faced the likelihood of forced marriages to terrorists.

Ethnic Council offers Support

Ethnic Council of Shepparton manager Chris Hazelman says he shares the ‘sense of shock and dread’ about what was happening in Afghanistan.

He said the Ethnic Council was in contact with community leaders to offer as much support as possible.

‘One of the things we’ve been asking people about this morning is what we can do in a tangible way — what sort of things the community wishes to do, what they would respond to,’ he said. The Ethnic Council of Shepparton estimates there are 1600 Afghans currently living in Shepparton.