‘We’re still really traumatized’: Hamilton family faced bullets, crowds to escape from Afghanistan
After being pushed through crowds at the airport, going days without proper food and even dodging bullets, a Hamilton family returned home from Afghanistan this week.
Personal support worker Nasrin Alakoozi was in Turkey with her family when they took a detour to Afghanistan to try to help her in-laws escape as the Taliban started to take over. What was meant to be a quick trip left her, her husband Keram Allakoozi, and children ages four and one trapped in the country for days.
We feel really happy we're home, but we're still really traumatized," said 26-year-old Nasrin on the phone Wednesday. They arrived home around 4 a.m. on Monday after two days of travel.
Keram's brother, Alakoozi Firoz, previously spoke to The Spectator about his concern for his family stuck in Afghanistan.
The Allakoozis are one of now at least five families from Hamilton who were stranded abroad as conditions worsened, said Akbar Haidary, director of the Afghan Association of Hamilton on Wednesday. He's in contact with one of the families still in Afghanistan, and heard about the other three through other Hamilton residents familiar with the families.
The Allakoozis arrived in Afghanistan just as the Taliban took over, Nasrin said. They immediately contacted the Canadian embassy and after a few days, got a phone call late at night that a military plane was going to arrive in a few hours. Because of a Taliban-imposed curfew, they waited until 5 a.m. to go to the airport. By the time they arrived, thousands of people packed the gates.
Despite waiting several hours, they couldn't get through.
My kids were getting suffocated," Nasrin said. We couldn't do it."
They called the embassy and tried again, with no luck. The third time they went to the airport, there were gunshots.
Her family jumped into a nearby ditch to avoid getting caught in the crossfire.
We were so close to losing my one-year-old," Nasrin said. When the shooting started, everybody jumped on him."
When the Taliban left, the family went to a British camp where they waited several days before someone took them to a Canadian base to finally board a flight home.
Even while we were at the camp, we could hear the shooting day and night," Nasrin said.
They got on a military plane destined for Kuwait on Aug. 21, sandwiched among hundreds of people for hours. From there, they boarded a seven-hour flight to Germany, still squished on a military plane with no food, water or access to a washroom, Nasrin said. Then they took a commercial plane to Canada.
The experience has left the family scarred. Keram doesn't sleep, and Nasrin wakes up multiple times from nightmares. Loud noises from the TV or even a toilet flushing scare her kids, she said.
The Allakoozis weren't alone. Haidary of the local Afghan Association spoke to the family of Nazila Ghafari, who's still in Afghanistan with her husband and two kids after at least three failed attempts to get through throngs of people to enter the airport. He said both of Ghafari's children, a five-year-old and seven-month-old baby, are sick, so the family is staying home while waiting for further instructions from the government.
He had no information about whether the other families were able to leave Afghanistan.
In an email Monday, Global Affairs Canada declined to say how many Hamilton residents were aboard Canadian Armed Forces' flights to Canada for privacy reasons."
On Tuesday, the Canadian Air Force evacuated more than 530 people from Afghanistan, which the minister of national defence called the largest Canadian evacuation flight to date."
Though the Allakoozis are grateful to be home, Nasrin said they're worried about those they left behind.
My husband is just so upset because he's like, How can I live in peace when my own family is struggling back home and there's nothing we can do?'"
Maria Iqbal is a Hamilton-based reporter at The Spectator covering aging. Reach her via email: miqbal@thespec.com.