Hello. These last few days have been filled with terror and sleepless nights for me. I am supposed to defend my Ph.D. thesis till the end of this year but I can neither write nor focus. I am traumatized and literally, cannot do anything. All of my family is in Afghanistan and I cannot even begin to imagine what they are going through there. We are the Hazaras- a minority group in Afghanistan- that have been brutally and mercilessly targeted the most by the Taliban terrorist groups during these last 3 decades. It is so sad and disappointing that I cannot help them despite wanting to because this is an unprecedented situation in our lives and the only solution is foreign help. I feel so helpless and desperate. Now that the Taliban has taken control of my beloved country, it is not very long till they start hunting Hazaras down and executing them in a genocide that might go unnoticed to the world. That's why I want to share my story with you all and request for immediate help. History has born witness to it many a times already. They search door-to-door for the presence of any Hazaras to kill. There is something that is even more petrifying than death: they are famous for taking girls and women as sex slaves. The Taliban are hideous creatures that commit crimes that send chills down your spine if you could hear about them. The limit of their violence and atrocity is unfathomable and I would not even qualify them as human beings. They are just wolves settling down in a new territory and it will not take much time for them to start killing, as it is their very nature. We have already lost 4 family members to them during their reign in the past decades- some cruelly executed by getting their throats cut and some by gunshots. No one could foresee what was going to happen to our country in the space of a few days. And now, my family is trapped inside it. Helpless and unable to defend themselves. Oh, how they would love to defend their motherland, but the stark truth is that they as Hazaras, have been left to fend for themselves without any support from majority tribes. So they stand no chance at all. Hence, the plea for help. My family has never wished to leave Afghanistan, they love their country and worked every day to try and make it a better place to live in. My elder sister is a feminist and Human Rights Activist who has helped thousands of women across Afghanistan despite receiving lots of death threats from the community for standing up for women's rights. Now she is definitely on the Taliban's hitlist.
A few weeks ago my niece-Hajar and my nephew-Abdulah (the picture) were so excited that the school started again after a long time because of the pandemic and that they can go to school but right now everyone is hiding at home and desperate and no one knows what is waiting for them outside the door. They have not left their homes it has been 3 days and fear for their lives if they cross the threshold. So I am calling upon you to help me get my family to safety.
The Canadian government has announced a humanitarian immigration program and they will accept them either if they can apply to the immigration program from a UNHCR camp outside Afghanistan (it is so risky for them to leave home and reach another country right now as the streets are plagued with the Taliban militants), or 5 people in Canada should provide sponsorship for each member of my family. I am not sure how the sponsorship process works but one thing I am sure of is that if we (my parents and siblings) could persevere and continue studying and finishing high school under the Taliban regime, and then be among the top students at university and go on to become human/women rights advocate, artist, economic analyst, pharmacist, and engineers and make a better life for ourselves and people around us, we can definitely make a good change faster in a better environment and society. They do not want to be a burden on any government. They shall be responsible citizens and contribute and give back to the society as much as they can and as they loved doing for Afghanistan, which they sadly have to let go of for now due to racism and xenophobia and an imminent and highly probable genocide. They have held on for a very very very long amount of time owing to the fact that they love Afghanistan and wanted to stay there and make it prosper someday. Most of them have been working with foreign NGOs and they had been offered chances to leave and settle abroad many a times due to their talent and hard work but they would always refuse. I hope that the world can understand their plight right now and not judge them for wanting to leave. Please help us. My siblings and parents do not deserve this fate. The Taliban is our worst nightmare and if they get their hands on them, they will treat them like animals and might face a fate worse than death even.

So please take my hand to bring my family to Alberta, Canada.
Please help me keep them continue smiling!