Sheffield student Aman talks to Forge Press about his escape from the Taliban and finding safety on British shores.
Aman spent the first 24 years of his life running. He was born in Western Afghanistan in 1979, the year the Russian army invaded.
When asked about his childhood during this volatile period, some of Aman’s most abiding memories are bombings; “our house was totally destroyed by bombs.”
To escape the violence in Afghanistan, his family had to regularly flee over the border to Iran, bribing border officials or paying people traffickers. Once the country was relatively stable again, Aman and his family were able to return to Afghanistan.
A few years later in 1997, the Taliban forces arrived in Aman’s town.
“At first they were good people – they finally brought law and order to the region.
“They were better than the government because at least they brought security, but that was until they began to impose Sharia Law, with its strict, oppressive rules.
“I was a teenager at the time. They banned television, destroyed the local cinema, I wasn’t allowed to go to school and my mother and sisters were not allowed to leave the house unaccompanied.”
Aman’s reaction was to fight against them, a decision that would change his life forever.
“We began to resist the Taliban illegally, spreading leaflets and rallying the people.”
After passive resistance failed to have any real affect, active confrontation began.
“We all decided to fight against the Taliban to expel these oppressors; thankfully, we managed to defeat them.” Regrettably, the victory did not come without causalities; “my father and many of my friends were killed.”
The victory was short-lived as Taliban forces returned later that year. “They launched a very violent attack,” he explained.
“Young people were targeted as they reprimanded all those ‘traitors’ who were involved in the battle.”
Aman’s brother was imprisoned and many people were murdered in the Taliban reprisals.
With the Taliban hunting their enemies down, Aman faced an extremely dangerous situation.
“To escape death I had to live in a tiny hideaway in the wall of my house. I stayed for a year imprisoned in my own home, tucking myself away every time the Taliban soldiers came to search the house.”
He adds, “I couldn’t leave the house; in times of war even your neighbour could be your enemy.”
In 1999, Aman left his home under the cover of darkness to flee Afghanistan and to escape the Taliban death warrant that hounded him so relentlessly.
“I decided to go as far away from the Taliban as I possibly could.”
He managed to escape to neighbouring Iran. “The country was inundated with a million refugees like me. The radical government there did not want us. I was ordered to be deported back.”
The steps that Aman was prepared to take in order to avoid returning to the Taliban were truly shocking. “I had to walk to Turkey. It took 29 days trekking over the mountains, travelling only at night-time to evade border controls.”
But even after such an arduous journey, Turkey only offered much of the same threats of deportation.
Aman then travelled to Russia with the help of fake documentation. Yet even though he had managed to get into the country, staying there was a continual struggle.
“I had to keep bribing the police and I was running out of money. I decided to approach all the embassies in Moscow for help.
“I didn’t care where I went; I just wanted to have the right to live.”
Cuba was the only country that offered Aman the help he was looking for and in 2000, he flew to the Caribbean island. “I was afraid of course, but I was excited – for the first time in my life I knew where I was going!”
Aman spent five bittersweet years in Cuba, finally feeling able to stop running and start living again; “it was like a big door had opened for me.”
Despite this, the ever-constant threat of deportation hung over him. In 2005, the inevitable happened; the country’s already stretched resources meant Aman could no longer be supported and he had to leave Cuba.
“That was when I approached the British Embassy in Havana. They told me to write down my life story and after a thorough investigation that lasted months I was finally granted asylum here in the UK.
“I never expected anyone to help me like this country has. The months waiting for the decision were so difficult – I was sure I was going to be sent back to the Taliban.”
His perilous journey has brought Aman to Sheffield where he now studies Spanish and Portuguese. It is here that Aman feels he has truly turned his life around.
He currently volunteers for various organisations that help refugees, such as the British Red Cross and Student Action for Refugees (STAR) who campaigns for the rights of refugees and asylum seekers both in the UK and worldwide, including rights to university education.
Nevertheless, his life in the UK hasn’t come without its setbacks. “I’ve had a few incidents of racism here.
“Once, just outside uni a drunk man started to shout and push me, saying ‘you paki, you’re just a terrorist.’ But my friends from uni show me that these thugs are just the exception.”
In Sheffield, Aman is accomplishing what he has always dreamed of; getting an education, having some stability in his life, and helping others like him.
Unfortunately, his story is not unique. In 2009, 885 unaccompanied youths (aged 18 and over) were granted asylum in the UK.
The issue of immigration in this last election was widely debated. Whatever your stance may be on immigration and asylum, Aman’s story is one that humanises this complicated issue.