ROMA– Erfan lands at Fiumicino airport in his father’s lap, barefoot, white t-shirt and black shorts. He smiles, hugs his mother on the chairs in the large illuminated hall of Terminal 5, colors the album given by the Red Cross, eats cookies. The darkness of fear seems far away. He left behind the terror, the murdered dead, the violence. Less than two years old, his eyes photographed the horror of Kabul. “My son saw the victims around us after the attack, it was terrible. He started screaming, he went into a state of shock. We had just managed to climb over the net over the drain, then that very loud bang,” he says. Ali Mohammadi, just over 30 years old. On the face all the pain of the last days.
Diary from Kabul by Alberto Cairo. The bomb has wiped out all illusions
by Alberto Cairo
Erfan, one of the smallest Afghans who left with the last C-130 from Kabul, was left without shoes immediately after Thursday’s kamikaze attack. They were ripped from his feet in the crowd, he was also wounded in the arm. The fury of the blast at Abbey Gate reached the dozens of desperate people who had managed to reach the departure area of Kabul airport. Erfan’s family, father, mother, grandfather and 5-year-old sister, fell face down on the ground. “Get down, get down”, shouted the American soldiers, convinced that soon there would be another attack. “They wanted to save us but they were terrified like us”, Alì tells the cultural mediator of the Italian Red Cross who follows the reception of the family in Fiumicino. Erfan lost his hearing for two hours, as did many of the bombing survivors who were near Abbey Gate. The roar stopped his ears.
Afghanistan, death one step away from salvation: Nadine’s nightmare stuck in Kabul
by Barbara Schiavulli
“It is difficult to explain the difference between us and you – says Ali, who ran a grocery store in Kabul – We are alive, you live. When you leave the house you never know if you will meet again in the evening. Our suffering is When the attack took place my father started crying while he was on the ground. He said: “If Erfan dies, nothing makes sense to me, neither living nor going to Europe. I want to die too “. Erfan and Mariam are the hope”.
Ali and his family didn’t even bring a suitcase in tow. “My home was everything, my father was born there too. And that I certainly couldn’t take with us. Our past is gone, many of our relatives are left in Kabul,” she says while holding Erfan in her arms. “I don’t want you to get your feet dirty.” Now is the time to wait. “We don’t know where we will go and what we will do. I started to breathe when the door of the plane opened, here in Italy. Only at that moment did I realize that we were safe. And this is already a lot”, Ali is moved. At 6 pm Erfan is no longer barefoot, he receives a pair of sneakers from the Red Cross which has also organized a collection for Afghanistan. Erfan starts hopping and approaches the other children. “Mekhaiom bazi konom (I want to play a little)”, he is happy and raises his arms to the sky.
“I had the documents for Italy, the bomb blocked me in Kabul”
by Floriana Bulfon
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