The Taliban “will come for people like me and kill me. I’m sitting here waiting for them to arrive. There is no one to help me or my family. I’m just sitting with them and my husband. I can’t leave my family. Where would I go anyway? ‘ These are the dramatic words shared on their social networks and released to the New York Times by Zarifa Ghafari, 27, the youngest mayor of Afghanistan.
Zarifa Ghafari has always been at the forefront of women’s rights. Appointed mayor in the summer of 2018 by President Ashraf Ghani, Ghafari is one of the few women to have ever held a government post in the ultra-conservative city of Maidan Shar (in the province of Maidan Wardak): «I am destroyed. I don’t know who to rely on. But I won’t stop now, even if they will come looking for me again. I am no longer afraid of dying ».
On Twitter he then released declarations of love for his land: «My dear homeland, I know you are suffering. I know it is difficult for you because strangers burn you and seek your destruction. But your true children who try to build you are full of courage, trying to get you out of these terrible days ». Reiterating, among the comments, that he will not leave his land even in these conditions and facing “certain death”.