“Now, we’re in the course of nowhere,” says Shagufa. “We simply got here out of a single trauma, and I believe we’re going to face one other trauma.”
The pair are torn between their craving for the previous, the family members they left behind, and their fears for a deeply unsure future.
Fazila, 26, and Shagufa, 24, are the youngest siblings in a big household. Members of the Hazara ethnic minority, their roots are in Bamyan, central Afghanistan.
Despite the trials and tribulations of each day life in Afghanistan, the sisters describe their life earlier than final summer season as “the golden days.”
They had been enrolled in college and their day jobs as flight attendants allowed them to journey extensively. At work, Fazila says she met everybody from former Afghan President Hamid Karzai to the Afghan pop star Aryana Sayeed.
When the Taliban took over Kabul on August 15, 2021, they felt they’d no selection however to go away.
“We had no different choice,” remembers Shagufa. “We needed to catch a flight and flee. And that was it. If we had another choice, we might undoubtedly select an alternative choice fairly than be a refugee or find yourself right here.”
The sisters supposed to go to Islamabad in Pakistan however arrived at Kabul’s airport too late. They discovered themselves caught up within the chaos of 1000’s of individuals attempting to get in another country.
“The feeling at the moment was horrifying,” says Shagufa, describing the massive crowds of Afghans, all determined to flee. “We had been all terrified and clueless, as a result of we did not know the place we had been going.”
The sisters say that, along with some work colleagues, they made their technique to a airplane parked on a distant a part of the tarmac. They had no concept the place it was headed till minutes earlier than take-off.
“We had been hopeful. It’s like, ‘Ah, lastly! We made it,'” says Shagufa, sighing and dropping her head in mock exaggeration.
But the aid of escaping hazard quickly gave technique to the onerous actuality of life as an asylum-seeker in a wierd nation.
A brand new life in Ukraine
Fazila and Shagufa had been amongst a bunch of 370 Afghans who arrived in Ukraine on evacuation flights in August 2021, based on Ukraine’s State Migration Service. Definitive figures are onerous to return by, however activists estimate that round 5,000 Afghans reside in Ukraine.
On arrival within the nation — one which they’d by no means been to earlier than — they are saying authorities took them to a housing facility for migrants some two hours north of Kyiv, near the border with Belarus.
Two weeks later, because of the assistance of a pal who works for a Ukrainian airline, they had been capable of transfer right into a furnished residence in a modest housing block on the outskirts of the capital, Kyiv.
But the sisters say they now doubt whether or not leaving Afghanistan was the appropriate choice.
“If I’d know that dwelling life right here, (that) it could be such a problem and so troublesome, I’d not select to be (a) refugee. Believe me. Never,” says Shagufa.
The Haidary sisters have filed for asylum in Ukraine and predict a choice inside weeks.
But with their utility nonetheless pending, they are saying they’ve struggled to search out work of their subject — regardless of having Ukrainian documentation permitting them to get jobs. They say they’re solely capable of afford the hire on their residence with assist from an uncle who lives in Germany.
Beyond an preliminary grant of three,200 Ukrainian hryvnia (round US $112) once they first arrived in Ukraine, they are saying they’ve confronted constant indifference from the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR.
“They are pretending that they’re serving to us,” mentioned Shagufa. “But in actuality, it is nothing. When you need to go to them or … whenever you need to speak with them … it’s very completely different.”
In an announcement to CNN, Victoria Andrievska, a spokesperson for UNHCR Ukraine, mentioned that it “gives authorized help to some 300 Afghan asylum seekers, and in addition gives monetary help within the type of an allowance granted for newly arrived asylum seekers.”
UNHCR additionally clarified that whereas it expresses “solidarity” with international locations that took in Afghans final summer season, it “was not concerned within the evacuation of Afghan residents who’ve assisted overseas governments or navy forces in Afghanistan,” and that it was not liable for visa preparations.
And but regardless of the hardship, indicators of pleasure — and the energy that the sisters give one another — stay.
When, at the beginning of our go to, Fazila introduces herself and says she lives in Kabul, the sisters break down in uncontrollable giggles. Shagufa prods her with delight: “You reside in Kabul?!”
Uncertainty amid tensions with Russia
Now the sisters face the identical uncertainty as everybody else in Kyiv. For the second, issues are calm and life is happening as standard, however the potential of imminent warfare is rising — not less than based on overseas leaders.
US President Joe Biden mentioned Tuesday that Russia has greater than 150,000 troops massed on three sides of Ukraine.Russia denies that it’s planning to assault, however the United States believes an invasion could possibly be underway even earlier than the Winter Olympics in Beijing finish later this week.
Recent intelligence from the US and its allies suggests Kyiv could possibly be amongst Russia’s targets.
“The worst a part of that is (how) to deal with our household in Kabul,” says Fazila. “They are having their very own issues in Kabul as nicely. But it hurts extra that they thought that we’re protected right here.”
To cease their mom, a widow, from worrying about them, their siblings have instituted a “household protocol” barring their mom from watching the information.
“Just my brothers know what’s taking place right here,” says Shagufa. “But my mom, no. We are pretending that every thing is nice, every thing is ok. Of course, she is a mom. She has her personal fears concerning us, particularly for her two women. “
“We had been fearful about them,” says Fazila. “And now we’re fearful about them, and as nicely, ourselves.”
If the invasion does come, they don’t have any plans for escape. They say they’re too frightened to attempt to cross into Poland or one other close by nation.
“We will not be courageous sufficient to cross the border, in any other case we might like to go there,” says Shagufa.
The sisters say that they’ve had no assurances of assist from the UN.
UNHCR advised CNN it acknowledges the Haidary sisters’ “anxiousness,” together with that of different Ukrainians; it mentioned it was urging the Ukrainian authorities to incorporate refugees in its contingency planning.
When they escaped from Kabul, the sisters thought they had been among the many fortunate few. Now they are not so positive.
“I’m not prepared once more to undergo it,” says Shugufa.
Journalist Olga Voitovych contributed to this report.