WHO PAYS THE PRICE OF WAR?

I was a year-and-a-half old when we fled Afghanistan... in order to escape war, poverty and hunger, to survive and emigrate.

The difficult days of emigration Always come to my mind as an awful dream. My mother made pillows for us from cardboard, and our best food was dry bread and tea with sugar. later in 2000, my brother went to Iran and then to Europe to give us a better life, and I do not know what difficult days he spent in the mountains and seas to reach a safe place.

My body and soul are wounded by the pain of that terrible war. It snatched my childhood from me, it torn my family into pieces. After fifteen years in exile I returned to my homeland, to my beautiful Afghanistan, and I felt alive. I used to go to university with the fear and anxiety, I studied political science so that my children could live freely one day. There were days when we were shaken by the sound of the explosions in class, but we were holding each others' hands, hoping for a better tomorrow. 

I, a sixteen-year-old girl, decided to save my country from war, from explosions, from the sound of bullets. I wanted no mother to cry for her child anymore, no woman to say goodbye to her loved one, I wanted the streets of Kabul not to be stained with blood.

My dream was to build my home with love, to protect women and girls from being raped, and sexually enslaved. I was hoping for that... even as I was going to office through suicide bomb attacks and explosions. I was still hopeful because I thought the world was tired of war.

Today's world is aware, is civilized. It does not let its fate be determined by a few bloodthirsty and power-hungry people.

But I was wrong.

I was wrong because the world is full of hate. There is no safe place, our world is a world of war, the powerful are victorious and innocents are killed everywhere. The price of this war is paid by women and girls like myself, your children, the most innocent people. The price of the wars that burn houses.

Afghanistan has been burning in the fire of war for forty years, we have no sympathizer and our tired body and soul can no longer carry this grief.

The world must stop the war.

We have to be in solidarity because our strength is in our unity, we have to end war and bloodshed, we are all equally tired of war.

The attack against the innocent people of Ukraine reminds me of the days when I was in Afghanistan, and all my bones inadvertently sprang out of that pain. We are with you as never before.

The sun will rise tomorrow.

The trees will blossom. 

The butterflies will sing the hymn of freedom in joy.

The Flowers will grow from every drop of blood And every weary heart will cry out...

FREEDOM, FREEDOM.