And so he packed his dreams and a few possessions, and set off to make the long journey to Europe, where he believed he would be able to lead the life he wished for.

I met him in Calais when he settled with a few others around the “English Learning station I was running on a distribution.

Picking up books from the pile, they enthusiastically ran their fingers over English words that accompanied pictures and spelt out what they saw. 

Faisal pointed to his elbow and asked me hopefully, “Eyebrow?” 

“Elbow”, I said. 

“I learn, but I forget. English not easy”. 

He spent two hours sitting next to me, spelling out words, and reading out sentences. I downloaded an English-Pashto translator on my phone and we made some progress in learning sentences like, “My English is not very good”, “I need to see a doctor”, “I want to call my family”. 

Sentences he would need to use most frequently so he could survive in this new world.

He told me the story of how he had left home overnight, and made his way from Taliban-occupied Afghanistan to Calais, via Iran, Turkey and Greece. It had been hard: once, he pointed to a big open wound on his right leg and to a few boys at the other end of park playing football. “I like football,” he said, “but no play now”.

I had organised donations for Care4Calais over the past few years, but this was my first time at the camp and I was keen to make it count. Nothing could have prepared me for the faces, stories and lives that I saw at the make-shift camp in Calais that day. Young boys from Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Eritrea and Sudan – their full, normal lives as students, workers, part of happy families ravaged by war, famine, and takeover by the Taliban and so many other dangers.

Over six hours at make-shift camps at Calais and Dunkirk that day and the next, my friend Aji and I must have met several hundred people. As we began packing up to get back to the warehouse on our lost day, it suddenly hit me that the semblance of a normal life the refugees had had over those few hours was on borrowed time. 

It me determined to go back again next year for a longer period. We must keep on trying, for the sake of Faisal and all those like him.

The post Meet Faisal, refugee and aspiring journalist appeared first on Care4Calais.

I’ve been in the UK since July now, and while I am glad I am safe here I can’t help but wonder why we spent 20 years fighting the Taliban. Was it worth it now everything’s gone? It’s a really hard thing to stomach when you look at everything we sacrificed and lost so that we could have a future for our children, and then saw that future ripped from us.

I worked with the British Special Forces. I was with the Afghani Special Forces Commando, and being out there on the front line I saw what was coming, and I knew I would be one of the first targets. I applied for the ARAP scheme as soon as it opened, and I left Afghanistan early in July.

It wasn’t as organized as that makes it sound, because when the Taliban took the outskirts of Kabul I had to leave immediately. There was no time to get my wife and six children – two boys and four girls – out, so they’re still there in Kabul waiting to leave. I talk to them every day, and they’re as safe as they can be. They don’t live at home, but move from house to house trying to stay out of the Taliban’s sight.

My girls are still in school when they can be, but they have to keep moving schools too. This is becoming normal – no one questions who comes to school, unless the Taliban are there. But then if the Taliban are there, the girls do not go to school. Everything is getting harder. There’s no money and no jobs, and everything is collapsing.

My family is registered to come to the UK, but I don’t know when it will happen, and it is impossible to find anyone who can tell me. I have confidence in the British to get my family out, though; they looked after us in the army, so I hope they keep their promises.

When I first arrived in the UK I was sent to a hotel in London. I didn’t know anyone there though, so I asked if I could go to stay with my cousins in Manchester. I was allowed to do this. My cousin knew about Care4Calais, and said they would help me find some clothes, so I went to meet them at a hotel where they were doing a distribution. I got talking to the volunteers, and one day I found they needed a lot of help moving boxes, so I did this for them. I much prefer to work than sit around. In Afghanistan I was very busy with my job.

I worked in Helmand, Kandahar, Herat and Jalalabad, always on special missions on the front line. I was a major in the Quick Reaction Team (QRT). If you’ve watched The OutPost on Amazon you’ll know the sort of thing I did. We’d be flown in for 72 hours or less and have to move back out quickly, so we couldn’t be found. By June we were surrounded, and I knew we couldn’t do anything when America left; I saw it happen, and I knew that was the end. I knew there would be nowhere to hide, and I knew that I was a major target. If I stayed, they would have been able to use my family to make me surrender. I had no choice.

I spent some time training other soldiers in the Afghan army. I really enjoyed this, and I thought we were making progress in making a good army that could keep Afghanistan safe.

I miss the army and my friends both Afghan and British, but I do like Manchester and its people. They are very friendly. Back in Afghanistan I liked to play volleyball and chess; I was pretty good at chess, and it would be good to find someone to play with here. Right now I just play online, which is OK but it would be good to sit outside with chai and play for real. I think that would help me learn English faster too!

Anur, Manchester

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I worked in Helmand Province for Britain’s Ministry of Defence as an interpreter for five years. I spent my time with the British soldiers, on patrol and on the post. I carried the massive packs through the sweltering lands, I was shot at and hunted. I lived with the same risk as the soldiers – the only difference was I didn’t carry a weapon. 

But I never felt as scared as I did in the last days of Kabul.

I have a lovely wife and two small children, and when I was no longer needed by the army I joined them in Kabul. It is normal in Afghanistan for extended families to live together, and we lived with my parents and grandmother and my younger brothers and sisters in our big family home. 

I was lucky enough to get a job at the American embassy in the city, and I worked there for six years. It was a great job – I met many people, and made a good life. But the shadow of the Taliban was always there, and when the troops started to leave en masse, I decided we also needed to leave. I applied for the ARAP scheme as soon as it opened, and we were accepted. We were in no hurry, we honestly thought we had time. 

But by May I knew we had made the right decision. And by July I knew the Taliban would take over. 

The problem now was my family. My brothers and nephews were of fighting age, 16 and 17, but even young ones were at risk. They would be made to join the Taliban and forced to fight, beat and torture other citizens. My sisters would not be able to continue school, and would be at great risk from the violence of the Taliban. 

I did not believe the Taliban had changed. We had been fighting them for twenty years, and before that they were Mujahideen; people like that do not just change. So began a race against time to get visas for my family. But this was a nightmare as so many other families had had the same idea, and the embassies were inundated. 

We managed to begin the process, but on August 15 when the Taliban entered Kabul, we were not ready. My family did not have their visas, or a place with me on the ARAP scheme. I gathered all my family’s documents together and we packed some things, we moved to my sister’s house in Kabul to try to stay low, and we waited.

This time was so hard. We couldn’t go outside, and we were just waiting, knowing nothing. Desperately searching for news, and watching my phone for messages. August was nearly over and if we didn’t get out by the 31st we wouldn’t get out at all. Finally it came. A simple message – go to the Baron Hotel, an international hotel less than a mile from the airport.

For three days we tried, waiting outside the airport in a crush of people, but we could not get through even though I had my passport and visa. The crowd was too big and dangerous. 

On the third day I left my wife with my children outside the airport fence with my older brother, and pushed my way through the crowd. I was desperate to find someone who could help. I finally got close to the gates outside the airport and I waved my passports at the soldiers. One of the guys at the fence saw me, and recognising my passport he waved me over. He checked the visa and said, OK you can go through. I said no, I had to go back for my family. 

I pushed my way back to Fatemah and the children. When I got there I knew there was no way we could get the bags through. I didn’t know how I could get the children through the crush either. That’s when I thought of the drainage ditch alongside the fence that ran to the gate. I pulled them into it and we waded through the filthy, stinking water. I carried the little one and dragged my wife while she held onto my son. My brother guarded her from behind with my older sister. 

At last we got to the gate and the soldier waved us through the crowd. But my wife was stuck, she couldn’t get through the mass of people. I pushed the children through, and then pulled my wife; she had to let go of her bag, which contained everything precious to her. I pulled her sobbing into the safety of the airport. She had left everyone and everything she loved behind her.

Once we were through, I told everyone we would be OK, and I tried to stop the children crying. We were sent to wait outside the Baron Hotel on the concrete. We spent three days there; three of the worst days of my life. Just waiting in the hot sun, no beds, no shower, no anything. 

In the end we were called into the hotel, and then out ont a flight to Dubai. From Dubai we went to Birmingham in the UK, and from there to a quarantine hotel near London before ending up in the Radisson Blu in Manchester. By now we were beyond exhausted.

We have been here for two months now, and are beginning to feel settled. But we have no idea when we will get a house, or where it will be. 

The people here have helped us and been so kind and we are very grateful to them. The children have school places and we have applied for Universal Credit. Charities like Care4Calais have found us clothes and shoes, as we arrived with nothing. We left our shoes in Kabul; they were stinking from the drainage ditch.

I would like to move on, to find a house and know where I will be living, to find a job, and to feel safe. I want to forget the nightmare of the last flights out of Kabul. 

But the news from Afghanistan is appalling, and I know my family are suffering there. Things will get worse as there is no money and nothing in the shops. Was this inevitable? Could things have been different? I don’t know. But I don’t know that what is happening in Afghanistan breaks my heart.

The post Raafi’s story appeared first on Care4Calais.

Some of the little Afghan girls and boys I see at our distributions seem so sad it’s unbearable. They’re so quiet and withdrawn, and while some just want to be with their mums, others seem quite detached from everything.

At our last distribution, a little boy of about six came along with his mum, but then just found a child’s chair, sat down facing the wall, and stayed like that. He didn’t want to move, or talk, or interact with the other children at all. We tried very gently to encourage him to join in the playing, but he didn’t want to, so we kept an eye on him while his mum went to choose some clothes.

The thing is, one of the Afghan dads told me, it isn’t just that they’re in a strange new place. It’s that the journey here was so long and strange. “My family was travelling for nine days in total,” he said. “Waiting at the airport, going to Dubai, coming to the UK, where we were in quarantine.

“I had three children under seven years old. They had never been on a plane before in their lives. Imagine your first experience of flying in a plane is waiting to get through an airport where you might be killed, running down the runway to climb up into this big cargo plane with 300 people. Children and babies crying and scared. And no-one told us where we were going. Our children asked us, and we could not tell them.”

Most adults would find it terrifying. And my children were scared flying in a nice comfortable passenger for the first time. just can’t imagine the impact it’s made on these poor kids.

I remember reading a few weeks ago that holidaymakers at a hotel hosting some Afghan refugees on the coast had complained that the children were “running amok” there. I found it incredibly hard to believe, because the children we see are very reserved, and their mums keep a very close eye on them. To say such things about children who have been through so much is reprehensible.

We try to make things better for them at distributions by making a little play area for the children, with mats and toys. Most of them are happy there, and it makes it easier for the parents to concentrate on what they need if they can leave their children somewhere safe – so long as they can always see each other, our space works well.

The little boy on the chair did come round a little, and when his mum came back he snuggled into her and he cheered up. When I asked if he was ok, she gave a tired smile, and nodded. The suffering and bravery of these families overwhelms me sometimes. I smiled and back and busied myself with something to keep the tears back. This woman and her little boy don’t need our tears. They needed to know our government’s plans for them.

A lot of the Afghan women have been through so much, you can tell, but often they are so quiet, bearing it all in near-silence. It breaks my heart, but I try to be as welcoming as possible, and help them choose clothes for themselves or their children.

Sometimes they open up. That same day I had a long conversation about winter coats with one lady – we stood there talking about the kinds we preferred, and I helped her choose something that she liked, and she seemed really pleased with it. It felt good to have helped her. Small kindnesses can go a long way, sometimes; I try to imagine the pain of the women, men and children, and do what I can to let them know that decent people here are on their side.

– J, Care4Calais volunteer, London

Care4Calais will need a lot of warm coats for refugees this winter. If you can help, please go here

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