Najiba Ibrahimi, 36, shows what would have happened to her if she hadn’t managed to flee her country with her finger running across her neck as if to cut herself. Sitting on the train that connects Guarulhos International Airport to downtown São Paulo, the Afghan woman in the yellow scarf has several characteristics that make her a prime target for the Taliban: she is a woman, independent, worked as a soccer and cycling coach at a girls and belongs to the Hazara ethnic group, the most persecuted by the Islamic fundamentalist group.
Najiba is the daughter of Sorab Kokhan, 65, and Raihana Ibrahimi, 48, a refugee couple who own a small typical food restaurant in the Liberdade neighborhood, central São Paulo. Last Thursday (10), she arrived in Brazil with her teenage daughter, a brother and a cousin, after a dangerous flight to Pakistan and months of waiting and uncertainty. See in the video below.
Sorab had been trying to bring his relatives close to him for two years, without success. In mid-2021, realizing that the Taliban was rapidly gaining ground on the eve of the American military withdrawal, he says he went to Afghanistan to try to rescue his children. On 15 August, the group invaded the capital, Kabul, and seized power. From then on, it was seven months of agony until they finally managed to come to Brazil.
“They went through mountains, valleys, always hidden because the Taliban are everywhere”, says Sorab, about the flight to Pakistan. “At each stretch, we didn’t know if they were going to let them through or not. They had to cross the border clandestinely, the girls wore burqas and went inside, but my son ended up being arrested right after crossing.”
Abdullah, 17, spent ten days in detention. “When they caught us, they beat me a lot,” says the boy, who until the fall of Kabul was a university student in a town in the eastern province of Ghazni, where his family lived. “I didn’t know what my life would be like, I thought I would never come home again. I couldn’t communicate with anyone. My mother and father thought I had been killed by the police.”
He ended up being deported to Afghanistan and had to face the same route again to the border and then to Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, where he would go through the procedures to obtain a visa. Sorab returned to Brazil while relatives waited for the bureaucratic process.
In addition to Abdullah, Najiba and their daughter, their cousin, Setara, 24, accompanied the group. The young woman, who was a soldier in the previous government, had her father murdered by the Taliban and was at particular risk if she stayed in the country.
The Brazilian government approved a humanitarian visa for Afghans on 3 September. As Brazil does not have an embassy in Kabul, the document has to be obtained in other countries in the region, such as Pakistan and Iran. The journey to reach these places is risky, especially for those groups that are more susceptible to Taliban violence. .
This is the case of the Hazara people, to which Sorab, Raihana and their family belong. Of Mongolian origin, the ethnic group was once predominant in Afghanistan, but after being the victim of many massacres, it now accounts for about 20% of the country’s 40 million inhabitants.
The Hazaras were brutally oppressed in the other period when the Taliban ruled the country, from 1996 to 2001, and are considered the ethnic group most discriminated against by the fundamentalist group. While more than 80% of Afghans are Sunni Muslims, the Hazaras are mostly Shia, which makes them a frequent target of attacks by Islamic State terrorists.
“We were always persecuted from all sides. And now the barbarity has started again. The Taliban fascists want to exterminate the Hazara people,” says Sorab, who in the 1980s fought the Russians in the Afghan-Soviet War and spent two years in prison
He migrated to Brazil in 2011, and Raihana arrived six years later. “I wanted somewhere to go. This is a free land, a good country, with democracy. We want to study, to be honest citizens.”
In Brazil, Sorab taught language classes –he speaks English, Spanish, French, German, Turkish, Persian and Dari– and later set up the restaurant in the Liberdade neighborhood. Initially, he sold pastel and other Brazilian dishes, but recently the couple decided to serve Afghan, Indian and Thai food.
The establishment was named Ko i Baba, a mountain range in its region of origin, and the menu has dishes such as the Afghan rib with basmati rice and the Indian shrimp with coconut milk – which can be eaten there or delivered via delivery apps.
Shortly after the Taliban invasion of Kabul, a Brazilian customer, Daniele Soares, went to the restaurant and found Raihana crying, worried about her family. “I couldn’t sleep or eat anymore, I didn’t know what day was and what was night. I was very scared”, remembers the Afghan.
Daniele then called friends and, with the help of a lawyer and other volunteers, the four refugees were finally able to board. The Brazilian went to the airport to accompany the reunion, along with Swany Zenobini, an activist who participated in the effort to help her family get to Brazil. “It was a long and arduous process until this outcome. There’s no way not to get emotional”, she said.
The night before the children, niece and granddaughter arrived, the couple barely slept. In the morning, the two went to the airport wearing blouses hand-embroidered by Raihana. The embrace at the arrivals gate was accompanied by tears and described by Sorab later in these words: “The sun lit up the world.”
In their luggage, in addition to clothes, they brought a special pan to cook the manto, a steamed beef dumpling, similar to a gyoza.
The six family members now share the two-room property that previously housed just the couple, above the restaurant. Space is tight, but on arrival day no one seemed to mind. “I could hardly believe it when I saw my parents again. I am so happy to be here,” said young Abdullah.
On the train ride home, Najiba cried thinking about her youngest daughter, who had to stay. Her other daughter, Azadeh, 16, accompanied her on the trip. “I want her to learn the language, go to school and play sports,” says her mother.
Sorab also said what he wants for the family in their new life in Brazil. “I want them to have a stable life, in peace. And that little by little they forget the anguish they lived through.”
