University of Oregon student Mashal Rahmati was trying to arrange plans to get her family to the Kabul International Airport in Afghanistan when two suicide bombers set off explosions at the airport on Aug. 26. After hearing about the suicide bombers, she said she called her cousin in Kabul who told her he heard another bomb go off near his house minutes before he answered the phone.
“I broke down and started crying after that,” Rahmati said. “You know, it’s just really, really scary.”
Rahmati began raising money to fund her family’s escape from Afghanistan and provide for their basic living expenses after the Taliban’s seizure.
Her family is Hazara, an ethnic minority in Afghanistan. Most Hazaras are also Shia Muslims — a religious minority in a country that primarily follows Sunni Islam.
For more than a century, Afghan Hazaras have faced discrimination and violence, including several genocides. The Taliban committed genocide against Hazaras during its 1998 rule. Rahmati said the Taliban’s seizure of Afghanistan this year is especially dangerous for Hazaras because of that history.
Rahmati said she is not only concerned about her family’s safety in Afghanistan, but also their ability to get out of the country.
At checkpoints, the Taliban will often turn away Hazara families trying to escape even if they have the proper documentation, she said.
Fatima Haidari, a friend of Rahmati’s living in British Columbia, told Rahmati about the experience of her 19 Hazara family members who fled Afghanistan.
Soldiers prevented Haidari’s family from crossing the border into Pakistan five times because they were Hazara, Haidari said. Her family would try to hide their faces with burqas or blend in with another family.
The soldiers were often violent with her family, beating them back and even spraining the elbow of her 9-year-old cousin, Haidari said. “They didn’t even have mercy on the children,” she said.
In addition to prospects of violence, Rahmati said the journey through dangerous territory to the border presents another barrier for her family. Some members of her family are not able-bodied, including young children, people with disabilities and a relative who is eight months pregnant, she said.
Haidari said it took her family 15 hours to drive to the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, a trip they repeated because they had to turn back five times. Once they were allowed to pass, it took her family three hours to walk across the border.
Rahmati began circulating the fundraiser to help her family escape from Afghanistan on Aug. 24. “It is my birthday today,” she tweeted. “Please help my family escape.” Rahmati is trying to raise $100,000 to help her 34 family members evacuate from Afghanistan.
The money she raises will go toward living expenses while her family is in Afghanistan, housing and transportation once they escape, between $2,000-$4,000 in attorney fees and $20,000 for applications for humanitarian parole.
Two of Rahmati’s family members worked for the previous Afghan administration and are being actively hunted by the Taliban, she said. The International Monetary Fund also suspended Afghanistan’s access to its resources, freezing the salaries of those family members.
“Imagine if that happened here,” Rahmati said. “You would just have the cash in your pocket, you know, and it was like, ‘Okay, how are you going to get out and survive?’”
UO graduate and founder of Fire+Bird Films Ephraim Payne helped create a video to promote Rahmati’s fundraiser. He said members of his family were killed in the Holocaust.
“I was compelled to try to raise awareness of similar things happening to other people,” he said.
Rahmati has raised $20,000 of her $100,000 goal. However, she said donations have slowed down in recent weeks.
A UO alumna heard about Rahmati and reached out to Katie Jo Walter, the International Alumni Digital Engagement Manager for the university, who then connected Rahmati to an immigration attorney in the UO community, Rahmati said.
“She had already done much on her own,” Walter said. “I wanted to support her important efforts and overall wellness.”
Rahmati said she is overwhelmed and exhausted at the prospects of continuing her effort as she returns to school. She has been working on a summer research project and must begin applying to doctorate programs this fall, she said.
She said she feels very isolated in Eugene, since many people are not familiar with Hazaras or the issues they face. She said she hopes people will educate themselves about Hazaras.
Rahmati is raising funds through her Venmo and PayPal — both @MashalRahmati.
